Another When
by RansomRose77
Summary: AU, OC, some Dark Tower allusions. Hurt/Comfort theme. Yup, this is a 'Let's save Nick' fic. Except it runs deeper than that. The last third of the book derailed entirely & resorted to faith without reason to resolve character arcs. I've been turning this over in my mind for about 20 yrs & finally found the courage to continue. Expect more than babies and questions at the end.
1. We Gotta Get out of This Place

**Disclaimer: I own nothing, except for Meghan O'Malley and her extended family and history. Nick Andros, **_**The Stand**_**, and all related characters are the exclusive property of Stephen King. Bless him for his generosity in lending these fevered dreams to the world.**

**Intro: This could take the place of Chapter 41, falling directly after Nick's leave-taking from Shoyo. I don't mean to abridge canon here, just bump it a little bit.**

* * *

She came north from Houston, weaving her way through a city that had been torn apart by riots and fires, some of which still burned. Tanks and jeeps lined the sidewalks. Army transport trucks and SWAT vehicles were located everywhere, all abandoned. They'd set up barricades to close off some of the more dysfunctional neighborhoods, but most of these had been broken through. Four days ago, on June 26, her pretty, very sick young aunt left Meg sitting in her chic uptown loft and ventured out onto those streets, which were still punctuated by sirens, crashes, gunfire, and the occasional scream.

"Missy, you're too sick to go," Meg pleaded, half-heartedly. She sat on her aunt's expensive couch holding a stiff pillow embroidered with sequins in the shape of a peacock. It was obviously meant to be decorative and not functional. It had been two days since her grandmother died in a private hospital suite where they stowed her with five other people, all of them in varying stages of the disease. The doctors weren't even treating anyone by then, and only the luckiest of patients were able to receive triage. This was largely a placebo meant to pacify privileged benefactors. Henrietta O'Malley had made some substantial contributions to St. Luke's since her husband's death from cirrhosis sixteen years ago, all of them tax-deductible.

"I want to check it out. If there's a way out of here, then my office will do it." Melissa O'Malley was thirty-one and had advanced to liaison for a large shipping magnate. Her company juggled open space on almost all commercial flights and ocean liners. Of course, the news reports indicated that all travel was down, but army planes and helicopters had been flying overhead on a daily basis. The city's garbage fleet had been appropriated by the military, which began trundling up and down the city streets as chaos broke loose. The two young women supposed that bodies were being transported in those trucks, probably to naval vessels which would dump them in open water beyond Galveston. The phones were all out. The entire Third Ward burned that afternoon in a frenzy of arson as sick and confused people took to the streets and the National Guard swept in to deal what a shaken reporter called "a grave and shocking military offensive on homeland soil." Blurred and silent footage depicted a hellish scene of destruction, smoke and carnage before there was an abrupt end to the broadcast, followed by the strident, lonely bleat of the Emergency Broadcast System.

Meg watched her aunt, a slender woman who normally appeared poised and confident in even the most daunting situation, struggle to pull a svelte bolero jacket over her satin chemise. Her eyes were sunken and black, her neck swelled with what the locals were calling tubeneck and the wetbacks called _La Peste Negra_. "You're not well enough," Meg repeated dully. She felt blank and astonished and had a hard time feeling the plush beige sofa beneath her as anything substantial. She felt like she was falling. But a sudden flash of anger seethed. She threw the pillow at a plate glass wall where the flat Texas skyline was punctured by a series of rectangular gray towers. "You're going to get killed out there!"

The other woman located her keys, tied a chiffon scarf around normally tawny hair which hung limp from sweat and sickness, and tucked paperwork including her passport and contact lists into her purse. She had the names of some high profile men who had taken a goodly chunk of her late mother's fortune over the years. More than one had direct influence with that scarecrow in the White House. Henny had stumped for him and every other Republican candidate since 1952, and she was nothing if not a grand and generous hostess. If there was ever a time to call out family debts, it was now. Missy shut the clasp. "I'm dying," she said blandly. She'd swallowed two valium with a glass of Chardonnay an hour ago. The fever she bucked all night long had finally abated. She was clear headed. "I'm going to see if I can get you home. Don't go outside. Don't answer the door."

She left with her shoulders squared. Meg never saw her again. Later that night, the sounds of breaking glass and the pummeling of ammunition exploded on the street beneath Missy's 10th floor brownstone.

* * *

So it was that July 27, while Larry Underwood was busy balling Rita Blakemoor, Meghan O'Malley spent all day hiding behind the beveled mirror doors of a spacious closet in a mostly strange city. She cried quietly and slept fitfully. As the lonely hours stretched into July 28, she ventured out briefly. Those sounds from down below had mostly faded to silence. Meg crouched near the bedroom windows, watching great chunks of light disappear into darkness. Lights were going out all over the city. She got a drink of water and numbly located a box of Special K, which she clutched as she stumbled back to her makeshift fortress. It tasted like dried leaves and she wished Missy had Golden Crisp.

After another day, she knew she had to leave. Whether she was sick or not—and she fully expected to come down with it herself later if not sooner—she couldn't stay in this. She crawled out in the pre-dawn stillness of July 30 and packed a single large knapsack, the same one she'd carried on the flight from Syracuse. She was glad she thought to grab all her most personal belongings when they left the ranch outside Victoria. She thought of her suitcases with all the other clothes and books she'd brought for the summer. They would stay in her part-time room there in the sprawling two-story house her great-great grandfather built up. She imagined it would sit now until its wide balconies and veranda finally began to collapse from neglect and disuse during the wettest wet and driest dry seasons southeast Texas had to offer. She was going home.

* * *

For the first time she regretted not learning to drive. Weaving in and out of the cityscape, Meg saw only the shadows of several people who quickly faded down alleys or behind buildings. Often as not, she veered just as swiftly in the opposite direction. She was not prepared to meet others in this wreckage. They were like rats now, shying from the light, scavenging refuse. Once a neat and trendy city, Houston now struck her with all the charm of an oily and bloated whore, riddled with the humid fever blisters of a STD. As she wove out from an underpass, one older man sat disconsolately outside a 7-11. He raised his gray head to show reddened eyes, a week's worth of stubble on his tired face, watching her go without a word. This would be the face she would remember. By evening, it was clear from the blisters on her tired feet that she'd need a bicycle if she intended to make any distance at all. She found a Kmart store a few miles out on Route 59. The store had already been broken into, its front windows completely smashed in. She was alarmed, but not discouraged. She climbed gingerly through the broken doors, thinking whoever had looted wouldn't likely stick around. Neither would she. Working swiftly, she found a light-weight ten-speed already assembled, complete with a small rack fit for a sleeping roll and pad.

She made quick work outfitting this and left it in front while she returned with a flashlight to find food and necessities. She wanted road maps, extra batteries ... a shuffling noise startled her so badly, she backed into a display of sporting goods, sending them to the floor with a crash. She flinched as a number of baseball bats clunked, rolling away from her feet.

"Is someone there?" she called. Her voice sounded terribly strident. The store was dark except for the flashlight in her shaking hand, sending a pitifully small beam of light skittering across the ceiling and down nearby aisles. Meg was still terrified of confronting those who were delirious or dying. Worse, she had no way of knowing how many might have survived.

As her unexpected company stirred from the shadows, Meg found herself staring directly at a pasty young man in army fatigues. His hair was buzzed, making his sharp features appear even more angular. He'd stripped off his jacket and created a make-shift sling, from which his right arm hung limply. Meg couldn't tell for certain in the dark, but it looked like there was quite a bit of dried blood on him.

"You wasn't stealing was you?" He hoisted the assault rifle hanging at his left side. "Because we was directed to enforce THE LAW no matter what!"

Meg shook her head, setting down her pack. "N-no. I just ... There's no place open. I just walked all the way from downtown and there was barely anybody left on the streets."

"All sons o' whores have been summarily dealt with," he clipped, robotically. "Those who have not given their life for their country have been called upon to uphold honor. Act smart gal! Now kick that flashlight over here!"

Meghan could not believe this. This kid was barely older than she was. She'd imagined death more than once in her life, but never had she thought it might end being held hostage in a deserted Kmart someplace in Texas while the whole world went bust. Yeah, she thought, _this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper._ She did as she was told; lowering her flashlight gently to the floor, she kicked it across the linoleum until it rolled to a stop beneath Biloxi Blues' boot.

"Good gal." Something hard glittered in his eyes. He did not appear to be sick. Oh man, not good. This was so not cool. A wave of pure self-interest cut through the numbness she'd been wrapped in since leaving the green, familiar acres of the I-O. Biloxi smirked and lowered his weapon slightly. As he stepped forward, a wash of adrenaline seized her.

Without conscious thought, she reached down and grabbed the nearest bat. At the same moment, her antagonist sent his weapon off in a series of bright orange fire-bursts which scalded and smoked in the darkness. Meg felt one zing near her right elbow as she lifted the bat, but it missed her. Apparently, firing an M16 was harder with just one arm to steady it. Lucky for her. She brought the bat swinging round hard as she could, gathering momentum, managing to strike him on the left shoulder, which forced him to drop the rifle. It clattered to the floor and Meg flinched, thinking it would go off again. She tried to kick it away, but now he was enraged.

He shoved into her like a bull. Her nose met his collar bone and smarted. She clawed at him fiercely as his wiry arm went round her neck, forcing her head down in a choke hold. The abandoned flashlight came underneath their feet during this horrible dance, spinning wildly. With stars blinding her eyes, she used her one free arm—the one not pressed tightly against his sweaty, smelly chest—to reach blindly in the darkness. Her small hand made purchase with his crotch, grasping and twisting with sharp fingers till she felt his balls roll and squish together like ripe plums beneath the loose army khakis. To her amazement, she found herself free, gasping for breath and stumbling to find the bat, which had rolled away when he grabbed her. Biloxi had doubled over and was _making soft woofing sounds like a terrier with laryngitis_. This would have struck her as hilarious if the circumstances had not been so dire. She got the bat—she never was sure if it was the same one—and hesitated for a bare second. What if she was wrong? What if the guy hadn't been going to hurt her at all?

"You beetch!" he huffed. He had begun to straighten himself up again, and what's more, he had looped his foot around the shoulder strap of his rifle and was pulling it back.

She had backed up a good six feet or so behind him. Now she hoisted the bat resolutely and came running. This time, she struck firmly on the back of his skull, which produced a terrible meaty-sounding crack. Meg thought of pounding a pork chop with a mallet and hitting the bone. He stumbled and hunkered down on all fours, but did not go straight out. Meg grabbed the rifle from under his foot and he attempted weakly to kick her, but she was backing up steadily.

"Don't move," she croaked, her voice a hoarse whisper. He was crawling, his head bobbing like a sick dog's. Meg continued to back up till she found the knapsack she'd dropped. She managed to grab it while still holding the rifle trained in his general direction. He was trying to get to his feet, she saw, but having a hard time raising his head. She was shaking. She had no idea how to shoot the rifle, but she found her legs could work. The blisters on her feet completely forgotten, she turned and ran as fast as she could out the front of the store. Now she leaped through the broken glass without a thought. With her heart pounding, she couldn't hear if he was following her or not. He didn't call out, and she didn't look back.

The air greeted her clammy nose with cool clamps, and she realized it was bleeding. But the sky was an expanse of Mediterranean blue arching in every direction, the horizon an aqua-tinted shoreline. She'd left her appropriated bike against the brick wall, sleeping roll strapped on already. The sight struck her with simultaneous relief and horrible irony. She could get away, but what if he pursued? What if there were others? But she jumped on without hesitation, the M16 slung over one shoulder and her pack over the other, and she rode. She pumped madly, trying to shrug her knapsack back as it shifted, listening for an engine or some sound that the madman was behind her. She kept expecting him to come around a corner, heading her off. But there was only the dry ticking of her wheels.

She turned several corners, weaving her way off the main highway and into suburbs. She stuck to backstreets, not stopping till she had put one town and then another behind her. Toward dawn, she finally began to relax. Dragging the heels of her sweaty LA Gear high tops over the loamy pavement, her eyes goggled at the night. Crickets and peepers chirped. Something skittered in the underbrush, but even in this fuzzy state of numbness, Meg realized it was nothing human. Perhaps a coyote. If so, there was plenty to scavenge without bothering her. She was shocked to discover that this thought struck her indifferently. Exhausted and dehydrated, she chugged most of a bottle of Gatorade she'd strapped to the bike's top tube.

She was in the proverbial middle of nowhere. If Biloxi didn't lay dead or dying, he surely wasn't following her either. Nevertheless, she didn't sleep till dawn, and that was when she found a lone barn standing far back from the road. She crawled up in the hay loft and went to sleep sitting in a corner under the eaves, the M16 conveniently nestled beneath her hand.

She woke around noon to the sultry air that wound up from the Gulf Stream current, undercut with the smell of cow manure and raw earth. Her body was so tired and she felt grimy and awful, but sheer will drove her to keep going. She filled out her meager supplies at a tiny gas station down the road. More Gatorade, water, packs of stale peanuts and granola bars. There was a surplus of packaged jerky and Slim Jims, and she tore into the salty meat greedily. She strapped the M16 on the bike again, but within an hour it was causing her more anxiety than it's worth. She had no idea even how to unload the clip or engage the safety if there was one. Now that the shock had worn off from her encounter, she was terrified of killing herself accidently. Also, it was distasteful to her, a reminder of the societal symptom she had acquired it from. She finally discarded it as she crossed a narrow river near Lufkin. She simply unhooked it from the rack and dangled the malignant thing by its strap. When she let go, there was a brief splash as it disappeared in the sloughy brown water, but she thought she'd breathe easier without it.

* * *

It was late in the afternoon of July 3. Meg was taking shelter from the sweltering heat of the day. She had pedaled as far as her weary, aching legs could push; now the deep, shaded porch of a vibrant farmhouse proved irresistible. Like many late Victorians, it featured gingerbread trim and jaunty stripes painted on its carved posts. Still, she was bristling with foreboding as she climbed creaky steps. She knew, even as she raised her fist to the door, that she was knocking at a house of the dead. This was the first time she had ventured this close to a human habitation since her encounter.

What drew her to this house particularly, beside the pretty trim and inviting shade, was the conspicuous red water pump located in the side yard. Water was something she needed desperately. The bottles she was carrying in her knapsack and on her bike were nearly depleted. More than that, she sorely wanted to be clean. So she swallowed her fear and pounded thrice on the door. The sound reverberated hollowly. The windows were dark. As her stomach began to settle somewhat, alleviating the lump of tension in her throat, Meg knew that the occupants were gone. In some sense of the word. She tried the door but it was locked. So she went down and began the process of refilling her water. After capping off the last bottle she took a glance at the sun, now dipping into the west. She decided here was as good a place to camp as any. She felt she'd made far more headway in the past few days than she expected to. Having finally gotten out of Texas, she was breathing somewhat easier and desired a short period to recoup before making a decision as to where she would go. When she first left Houston, her mind racing, the adrenaline coursing through her, striated by fear and plagued by nightmares, she thought she desired nothing more than to see her home, the familiar greens of the Ithaca campus where her parents taught so many years ago, the little houses on her aunt's shady street. Was it possible there was still someone there? Was it possible she'd ever see Aunt Miriam or Ben again? That was where she was supposed to be, not in this foreign south, this hot and stagnant land, entombed here with the dead.

She sighed and knew in order to stay she'd have to find a way inside. There was no way she was going to invite herself for a slumber party with corpses. So unless the unfortunate inhabitants had managed to die in a hospital, or more likely tried to evacuate ahead of the plague, she would have to trek on. Placing her knapsack on the back of her ten-speed, which was now parked on the side of the house by the pump, Meg began walking round the building. She took note of the garage in back, actually a converted old shed or wagon house. There were no cars or trucks in the drive or inside, so that was a good sign. There was a screened porch back here, connected by a breezeway. Miraculously, she found the back door unlocked and was able to enter without smashing a window, which was plan B. The back door opened on the kitchen, which was dim. There were still some dishes piled in the sink, but otherwise it was clean. There was a large farm table with an unfinished top, rubbed smooth by many years. A wallpaper border of roosters went round the top of the room and checked curtains hung neatly at the window over the sink. Meg wandered through the rest of the downstairs rooms, finding them each empty in turn. Finally, she steeled herself to climb the stairs and explore the bedrooms. To her relief, she found them deserted. She discovered that the downstairs bathroom near the kitchen, likely converted from a pantry when plumbing was added, was the only one in the house. There were three bedrooms. One looked to have been an adolescent girl's; one obviously belonged to two young boys with bunks. The parents' room was large, cozy, littered with laundry. If anything was amiss, it was the unmade beds, the haphazard spread of Kleenex and juice bottles, some Nyquil on the dressing table. The superflu had not spared this family, but they had not stayed at home to die.

Meg shut the doors to each room respectfully and walked thoughtfully back downstairs. She avoided looking too long at the family portraits which graced the walls here and there. She went back through the living room, which featured a comfortable blue sectional, a matching Lazyboy, a gliding rocker with a wicker basket of knitting beside it. There were lamps which would never be lit again and one of those bulky old wood tv consoles that would remain blank forever more. She thought perhaps she would sleep on their couch tonight, this poor family whose neat home still stood in mourning. Wandering numbly back toward the kitchen, she blindly opened cupboards, noting cereal and crackers and cans, but didn't bother with the silenced refrigerator. She had no desire to smell rotten things. This house, emptied by the plague, was one of the few clean-smelling buildings Meg had passed, and now she wondered if it was not some sensitivity to this very absence of inhibiting odors which had attracted her inside. Perhaps it was. The very many other places she had passed had been so rank here and there with corruption (It is decay, her mind railed, bodies decaying slowly in the summer heat) that she had a hard time breathing and had more than once been sick to her stomach.

Suddenly finding the house caging, Meg went back outside, this time unlocking the front door, which did make her feel somewhat more in control, as if that simple action gave her at least temporary stewardship of the house she was infiltrating.

* * *

Nick pedaled to a stop. The sun was hanging low. He was about ten miles west of Shoyo on a rather desolate country stretch. One house stood up ahead on his left while fields stretched out in every other direction. His sore leg was burning irritably and he knew it was not smart to tax his endurance on this first day of exercise. He'd check out the house. If nothing else, it offered an expansive veranda with plenty of shade. He'd had plenty of nights thankful for as much sanctuary, and he could press on in the morning. A bit wearily, he climbed off the bike and began walking it the rest of the way, which was slightly uphill.

Meg was ensconced comfortably on the front porch glider, a book in her hand, when she heard the small but distinct ticking of wheels. At first she had the terrible suspicion that Biloxi had single-mindedly found her. He would appear maniacally on the horizon, weaving all over the road as he tried to steer with one hand, only this time there would be a grenade clutched between his teeth, determined to finish her off any way. But it was another young man who rode into view, slowing down maybe 100 yards from the house. He seemed to be in thought. She wondered if he saw her, but she was lost in the deep shadows of the porch. She folded her book, placed it down, holding her breath. She thought about bolting, even hiding in another closet, but she felt paralyzed. Now he was climbing off the bike and walking. He's gotta see me, she thought. She shrank back, but still did not run. His hair was dark, sleekly black, his skin very tan. He was wearing a white t-shirt and broken down jeans. He sported a black eye patch, like a pirate. That was weird. Suspicious maybe. She didn't know if he'd pose as serious a threat as those soldiers, like her erstwhile friend—but hey baby it takes two to tango—who occupied and finally helped obliterate Houston during the city's siege. The fact that he was riding a ten-speed like her, rather than powering down the road on a Harley or in some kind of Road Warrior truck did place him more favorably in her sympathy.

Nick clocked his bike to a stop in front of the walkway and looked up at the house. He was contemplating whether he should just go on up inside or check out the rear when he was taken aback by movement. A young woman stood up, a bit shakily. She had been watching him, he realized, and she was fearful. He raised his hand in salutation and smiled, his lips tightly covering his gapped teeth, the ones Ray Booth had taken.

Meg was no longer startled, but she was cautious. If he was a soldier … maybe a deserted one … She bit her lip and wondered if there were weapons inside. Knives in the kitchen. She could make a run for it if she had to. Finally, she raised her hand shyly and found her rusty voice creaking, "Hello, I'm not from around here."

Nick couldn't read her lips from that far, but he could tell when she spoke. She seemed to be thinking about high-tailing it back in the house, which he was assuming must be hers. Not once did he consider that she might be hostile, but as he pictured climbing the steps to hand her a note, he suddenly realized that _he_ might appear threatening under these circumstances. Conscious of his eye patch and the sweat dripping down the back of his shirt and his armpits, he again raised his hand in signal: Just a moment. With his other hand, he reached behind him, realizing that the gun he'd packed in his knapsack would further alarm her. He fished carefully and pulled out paper and pen. Now he wrote quickly and held his note out with a gesture of benevolence.

Meg watched this little scenario with a dry mouth, cocking her head. Suddenly she felt a lot lighter. She walked forward, down the porch steps, close enough now so that she could see his features. He wasn't very tall, but he was still at least half a head taller than Meg's humble 5'3". The eye not shaded by his patch was the cool gray of a dawn expecting rain. He had several facial scars, just healing, but his features were intelligent and sensitive. His hair flopped haphazardly across his forehead, damp with sweat from pedaling. A few hours ago, Meg herself had been wet with perspiration, till she stripped out of her stale clothes and thoroughly splashed herself with soap and cold water from the pump. Now she was wearing a pair of khaki shorts and a clean shirt from her bag. The shirt was an old and somewhat threadbare one, but it gave her comfort, and that helped ease the loneliness.

She was petite and looked to have been recently sun burnt. She was wearing a blue shirt with Han Solo and a _Return of the Jedi_ logo emblazoned on the front. Nick noticed it was a little tight across her chest as she reached for his note. The swell of her bosom rose and fell gently as she read. She reached one willowy hand and brushed tendrils of copper-colored hair back behind her ears.

"Hi. My name is Nick Andros. I'm not dangerous. I am deaf mute but I can read lips. I was staying in the little town of Shoyo, but I left there this afternoon as nobody was left alive. I think I might be going to see Nebraska."

She read quickly and her mouth dropped open, revealing even white teeth. Suddenly, she smiled brightly with dimples in her cheeks, giving Nick the first pleasant surprise he had felt since this whole world began collapsing around them.

"I am glad to meet you," she said, speaking as she signed. "I was afraid, but this is a strange coincidence. My name is Meghan O'Malley. I was raised with my cousin Ben. He's also deaf."

Nick nodded, flabbergasted. He hadn't practiced sign language in many years, since his teacher Rudy Sparks left the orphanage, but this girl knew basic ASL. Then a strange thought crossed his mind and he waved toward the house. "Is he here?" he asked, piecing the signs together from the back of his memory.

Meg shook her head. "No. This isn't my house. I'm like you. I was on a bike …" she waved off to the side of the porch, where her ten-speed was barely hidden behind a rose bush. "I was down in Texas with my Granma when she fell sick." A shadow crossed her face and she frowned, recalling. "We went up to Houston, so she could get treatment, but the hospitals were overflowing by the time we got there and the army was occupying the city. I'm actually from New York State. That's where I grew up."

Nick watched her acutely, with thoughts flying through his head. He proceeded slowly, trying to process this information. "Do you think maybe our … immunity … could be genetic?"

Meg shook her head slowly, realizing what he was thinking. "I don't know. I don't want to think that Ben is gone, and I have no way of knowing for sure right now. But his handicap wasn't congenital. He developed meningitis as a baby and was left mostly deaf, though he did learn to speak a little."

Nick nodded with grim understanding. Whatever had kept both of them alive was not likely linked to his own deafness. Their meeting was coincidental, something he should take as happy proof of synchronicity in an otherwise confusing maelstrom. He looked back up at the house and around the yard, observing the pump nearby. He indicated this, "I could use water. I was thinking about checking the house out and spending the night here, but it looks like you beat me to it."

Meg smiled. "Yeah, I've been biking all day, since break of dawn. I'm not even sure where I came from. I think I passed over a corner of Louisiana yesterday, circling to avoid Texarkana. I spent last night in the back of a pick-up truck out near a field, but I couldn't sleep well. I've been trying to avoid the cities, even towns. Houston got … really crazy there at the end." That shadow passed again, darkening her eyes, hardening her dimples stubbornly. Having lived through his encounter with Ray Booth and observed evidence of military presence outside even tiny Shoyo, Nick could imagine what kind of terrors the girl might have been witness to in a large urban area. She continued, "Like I said, the house isn't mine. I checked it out because I had a hunch it was empty, which it is. I don't care if you want to stay here. I might be glad to have somebody to talk to, finally."

Nick couldn't have agreed more.

* * *

Meg made herself scarce while the young man got water, splashing himself as she had done. While he attended to his needs, which included cleaning and bandaging his healing wound, Meg went back to the kitchen, checking for staples. She was tired of eating bags of trail mix and jerky while on the road. They offered quick protein and wouldn't spoil, but she was craving something cooked. Probably, she would not have gone to the trouble for herself, but with company she thought a meal was in order. There were lots of noodles and jars of vegetables and sauces, but the electric stove wouldn't work, of course. Thinking that most everybody kept supplies in their garage, Meg decided to investigate the building in back. Sure enough, there was a small propane stove and some Coleman lanterns in a cardboard box. Trying one out, she found that two of them had working batteries. There was a tank of propane for the stove. All neat and organized, she thought. By the time Nick had come around from the front, his hair wet and his old shirt slung over his shoulder, Meg had already set up her little camp and was boiling water. Down on her hands and knees, she looked up sheepishly, then stood and brushed off her knees. "I thought we might as well take advantage of any amenities we could find. I hope you don't mind pasta and peas alfredo. It's from cans, of course, but I've been eating gas station pickings, mostly, and my stomach is suffering."

Nick grinned. "I'm not a picky eater. That sounds great."

"Good." She smiled back. "Come on, help me get the rest of the stuff from inside."

* * *

After a hearty meal which they ate on the screened back porch, Nick and Meg took the working lanterns inside. They had no desire to explore the personal areas upstairs any further. Both reclined on the comfortable couch as it grew dark outside. The lanterns cast a small but familiar and reassuring electric light on the walls of the room.

"Tell me about yourself, where you come from." Meg was the one to start the inevitable process of getting to know one another.

Nick found his jaw tensing, remembering the lengthy history he had so recently written out for Sheriff Baker. As he thought about it, he took a few deep breaths. Suddenly it was nothing but natural to begin the outpouring which would so eloquently explain those events in gestures. It was repetitious but cathartic for him in a way that the writing was not. This was a dramatic and sensitive dance of words, his arms and hands rapidly casting shadows on the lamp-lit walls. Meg watched him raptly, finding herself amazed by the reality of this self-effacing but intelligent young man. He finished his tale with an abbreviated description of Ray Booth's attack, pointing to his patch and explaining that this was the source of his injuries. He debated briefly about withholding his murder of the man, but found the words spilling, "I killed him. I had to. He took my eye and he was going to choke the life out of me. I shot myself in the process. The bullet burned and grazed my leg. I got sick, blood poisoning, I think. I spent the last few days in a delirium on the Sherriff's cot. It was only luck that I chose the right antibiotics and the right dose to knock it back."

"Oh man, they really worked you over, huh, Nick?" she finally said, shaking her head and taking a sip from the glass of warm lemonade she clutched. Her forehead was knotted and her eyes looked dark again. "But that man was no better than a rabid dog. I'm glad you're all right. I'm glad of that."

He nodded, grimly.

She shivered and reached for the afghan draped on this stranger's couch. She fingered it, drawing it over her knees. "I don't blame you at all. It's possible we have more in common than you know."

Nick raised his chin in query. But she would not tell him about her hasty altercation with soldier boy. Not that night. It was still too soon. "We're both orphans. You lost your mom, and your dad before you knew him. I lost my Dad when I was eight. He had prostate cancer; it was eating him, but he took the easy way out." She saw the flash of understanding in his eyes. "Yes. He shot himself. My mother, she mourned even though they hadn't been together for years. They loved each other but couldn't live together."

Nick nodded again, and somehow the assent from him released something in her that had been festering, things that therapists had prodded her to talk about even while her surviving family neatly averted their eyes.

It seemed like a testament was necessary, something survivors must do to validate the past, and perhaps this flow would allow some closure in the process. "She was an assistant professor of linguistics at Cornell. He was head of the communications department, a film buff, and about fifteen years older than her. It was a case of student falling for teach when they met. He would've married her because she got pregnant, but she didn't want it that way. They stuck it out for a few years, but after she finished her degree and found her own place, I guess there was more tension than attraction. I think my brother, Jake, took it harder than me. He was my twin, but the older one. He always reminded me of that, wouldn't let me forget. He was closer to our Dad. I guess I wasn't close to anyone, except Jake. Mom never dated anyone else. I used to wish she would, afterwards. I used to think maybe we'd get better. I … there was an accident, then. It was six years ago. We were 12—I'm 18 now, 19 in another month. My mother was driving and there was rain. We … I blamed myself after I woke up, because we were fighting. I was bickering with Jake and Mom kept telling us to shut up, but I just kept baiting him and I knew I was doing it. I was sitting in the front by Mom, and he was leaning in between the seats. He wasn't wearing his seat belt because he kept trying to flick spitballs in my ear." She smiled half-heartedly. "I went to smack him and that was when Mom looked away from the road and it happened so fast. She was just merging and there was a truck. It slammed into her side and pushed our car. The car flew out onto the side and flipped down the embankment. Our Mom was killed on impact, but they had to tell me that later. Jake was thrown clear of the car. My last memory was of a hard pain slamming into me and the realization that it was Jake, and then the windshield was shattered and I'll never forget that. I remember we went up to Letchworth State Park hiking; the end of winter you hear sounds like that. It's the ice cracking in the gully, huge chunks as the waterfall breaks loose. Then everything went black."

Meg inhaled, her breath stuttering with the difficulty of her memories. Nick was leaning forward, reading her lips as she'd lapsed from signing many times during this emotional recollection. He patted her hand, which was twisting and turning around the corner of the afghan, knotting it in her lap. "I was on life support for almost a month. They were telling my family it would be better to turn it off, let it go, but I came back around. It was a concussion, pretty bad. I had some internal bleeding, a brain hemorrhage, but they'd been able to stop that. My shoulder was dislocated, but they popped that back in. There was pain, of course. Some busted ribs, scratches, lots of bruises. But I could get around just fine. I made a choice then. Granma wanted to take me back with her. I loved the horses, always did, every summer, but she and my mother never got along. It was over my father. David Kesselbaum. My Granma hated that. She didn't hate Jewish people per se. After World War II, she would have said Anti-Semitism isn't the American way. But it wasn't good enough for her daughter. Her father and her father's father were both good Irish Catholics. So was her husband, and she couldn't stand that her Sharon had chosen a curly-haired Jewish boy from New York. I wanted to live with my father's sister Miriam. She was divorced, but she had Ben. He was seven years older than me; I guess I always kind of idolized him. There was some fight over custody, but I was still in the hospital. I had to go to court one day, and the judge asked me where I wanted to be, and I told him I wanted to stay in New York. I wanted to be with my Aunt Myra and Ben. So that was where I stayed."

Her words petered off and she found herself staring at her tightly clenched fists in her lap. Then she released them and dropped the blanket she'd wound up. Able to look Nick more directly in the eye, now that the painful memories were relived, she went on explaining, "I got used to speaking ASL around the house with Aunt Myra and Ben, as long as he lived with us. But then he started graduate school, and that included field work. He got a job with the University research department. The alumni like their families. I started my freshman year last fall, and was only staying with my Granma for the summer, which I've always done. Ben is supposed to be overseas. He specialized in underwater archaeology, and he was with a team doing diving in the Mediterranean. There was funding from National Geographic, and the promise that they'd be published ..."

Nick watched her raptly. At first, he felt only polite as he digested her share of troubles. He noticed that she spoke only of the distant past. Obviously she didn't want to think about how the world had changed again for her. For him. For everyone left alive. When she talked about her cousin, his interest was piqued. He wondered if he would ever have found such a place in life, had he gotten into college, made a career. The possibilities astounded him, but their loss was enough to blow his mind.

Meg was tapping the coffee table with her toes. Now that she'd faced the immediate past, she was ready to broach the unknown. "I spoke to Aunt Myra on the phone, just as Granma fell sick. That was before the phone became a constant busy signal. She reassured me everything would be fine, said a lot of people had colds. It's just … oh God, I know she's probably gone, but I keep hoping that somehow … maybe the disease only hit America. Do you think that's so? At least, do you think there might be other areas, maybe places … especially at sea …" Nick shrugged helpfully, but she trailed off, because the tears were coming in the face of her futile reasoning. She knew it wasn't hopeful, because before all the tv stations turned to patterned gray snow, she'd seen news reports of outbreaks in China and Europe. The chances that anyone in her family was still alive were pretty much nil.

Nick's hand found hers, and he held both her small hands in his larger brown ones. His own hands were tanned and tough from much outdoor work, grimy work. Hers were soft, pink from the sun, her nails neat and manicured.


	2. Cold Fire

**Some brief quotes from the author's text will appear in italics as I weave them into my scenario. As always, whatever I have not imagined belongs to the Master of Horror, Stephen King.**

* * *

July 4 dawned with the promise of another clear and sweltering day in the Bible Belt. Meg was awake first. She was stretched on one side of the sectional couch, while Nick was positioned foot to foot with her on the other. She had no way of knowing that she'd kept him awake part of the night with her thrashing. However, she did remember the dreams which had been responsible, and this elicited a shudder as she sat up brushing her hands through her hair, blinking. As she stood, a bit shakily, Nick opened the corner of his eye.

"Hi," he signed, sitting up. "You didn't sleep well."

"How'd you know?"

"You were tossing and maybe muttering. I thought about waking you, but didn't want to startle you."

"Oh … thanks. I hope I didn't kick you?"

He shrugged and shook his head. "Doesn't matter. My own dreams haven't exactly been pleasant lately."

"I guess no ones can be any more." Meg went rummaging in her knapsack for another shirt. She was happy to wear her old tee for comfort, but she didn't want to sweat in it. She found a loose white cotton tank and a sports bra, which she decided she'd take in the bathroom to change. She grabbed her brush and a scrunchie too. Nick went outside and urinated in back of the garage, then splashed his face with water from the pump. He came back inside just as she was leaving the bathroom. As Meg carefully rolled her Han shirt up and stuffed it in her pack, she felt a twinge of embarrassment. It was a memento and personal, something she didn't reveal to those outside her family. She turned to Nick self-consciously and explained, "This shirt, it was my brother's. I kept it after he died. I know that's a little weird, but it was his favorite. We went to see the movies. Those were some of the best memories. I don't wear it in public."

Nick cast his eyes down for a moment. He hadn't really thought about it at all, except for noting that Meg was maybe a bit of a tomboy. She wasn't wearing makeup and she dressed simply, but he really had no reason to conclude that she didn't care. Circumstances were changed. She might have dressed remarkably different had there still been a thriving society to walk abroad in. Certainly her hair wasn't cut boyishly. It was a deep copper color, with thick waves which fell just past her shoulder blades. She'd looped it up in a loose ponytail. She had stylish bangs, feathered at her temples. Her slightly almond-shaped eyes were large and deep brown, like rich coffee. The apples of her cheeks were pronounced and given to blush. Her chin was strong and rather square. Her nose was a bit long but not unattractive in her face; she had a smattering of freckles over the bridge, not more than a dusting of cinnamon in her peachy complexion. Her slim arms were a bit more heavily freckled, just finishing peeling from sunburn. She might have been a cheerleader, for all he knew. Just a standard American college girl, fresh out of high school.

"It's Independence Day," Meg said, changing her tone. Nick cocked one eyebrow. He guessed it was. "I'd play Bruce Springsteen, but … you know." She improvised a line or two absent-mindedly, and he found himself following her lips carefully, wishing he could hear her soft voice. He imagined it was soft, but it might also be brassy. Brassy and soft at the same time? She raised her hand to her cheek as she sang, as if she were going to lay her head down. _"Well Papa go to bed now it's gettin late … Nothing we can say is gonna change anything now … I'll be leavin in the morning from St. Mary's Gate … We wouldn't change this thing even if we could somehow… Cause the darkness of this house has got the best of us ... There's a darkness in this town that's got us too …"_ She trailed off, suddenly acutely aware of the terrible appropriateness of the words.

She shook it off, laughing nervously. "I don't even know where that came from. I memorize a lot of the Boss's songs, I guess. I'm used to singing along. Don't mind me. I'm dippy." She finished zipping her pack. "Let's get out of here anyway."

* * *

They rode for most of the day, stopping only briefly for snacks and water. There weren't opportunities to talk when they were moving, but Nick found himself drawn to her more and more. Several times she raced ahead of him. He noticed the svelte muscles in her legs and back. She was toned; she had to be active, he thought, remembering the horse ranch she'd spoken of last night. She was used to riding, maybe. During breaks he watched her pink lips move and chew with satisfaction. She had a tiny scar that ran into the middle of her upper lip, perhaps a cut she'd sustained in her accident. Now she was wearing black sunglasses, teasing him good-naturedly when he lost track of her conversation.

"I asked why we're going to Nebraska, Nick. Is it because you were born there?"

He shook his head. It was high noon, and they had found a small copse of trees in which to eat. Meg was fishing M&M's and almonds from a pack of trail mix, leaving all of the peanuts and raisins, he noticed. He smiled lop-sidedly, deciding that sounding crazy was at least preferable to acting arrogant. They had barely discussed the matter of throwing in together. As they packed up their things and climbed on their bikes that morning, Meg had smiled shyly and said, "We could travel together for awhile. I'll follow you. I have no idea where I'm going anyway. At first I just thought I wanted to get out of Houston. Then it was Texas I wanted to be shut of. I'd go home, but I don't think I'd like what I'd find."

Nick had been overjoyed at the thought of company, thinking to himself that a 1500 mile journey on bike wasn't exactly a smart thing for a pretty girl to undertake alone. Not in the old world, and probably not now. With that thought, he was reminded of the gun still in his pack. He hadn't shown it to her, and didn't think he would, right away.

Now, he reached into his belt, where he'd tucked a skinny atlas he picked up at a gas station late that morning. He spread it out between them and pointed to the square of Polk County in Nebraska. "I've been dreaming about this place. I think I must have heard of it somewhere along the way. I've been around, met a lot of people in the years I've been on my own. I can't remember why, but this place is stuck in my mind somehow and in my dreams I'm associating it with a kind old woman who plays guitar. She just makes me feel safe, relieved to be out of some storm. I know that sounds strange, but I figure it's as good a bet as any. Who knows? Maybe we'll meet other people on the way. Plans can change. I just hope you don't mind following me on some mad quest."

"It doesn't sound mad to me." She raised her glasses, studying the map. She turned the page, finding Arkansas again. "We're about here, right?" She pinned a spot between Texarkana and the Oklahoma border.

Nick nodded. "And Shoyo's back here," he pointed to his starting point, stifling a shudder at the memories. He traced his finger along the route. "We must have met about here."

Meg smiled. "Our little borrowed house. I will remember how well it served us."

Nick wondered if she was flirting with him and decided it was possible, but she could as easily be feigning sarcasm. He reached for a Little Debbie Honey Bun that was spilling out of his pack, unwrapped it thoughtfully, and took a generous bite.

* * *

_By nightfall, _they_ were nearly to Oklahoma._

They'd decided to camp on another porch, but it was far too late and both were too tired to explore the farmhouse it belonged to. It was a gray and crumbling thing, and looked to have been long deserted. At least there wasn't much likelihood that people had died in there. Nick wondered at the interesting shift defining a haunted house. What once would have been a macabre Halloween dare was now a convenient haven, while thronging towns with their neat and tidy houses had become gruesome mausoleums. They spread sleeping rolls foot to foot, and then sat on the steps with one of the Coleman lights they'd brought between them, not talking about much at all, watching the stars pop out in an endless black sky. Nick shifted his legs. His wound, which he'd checked and bandaged a short while ago, itched but the muscles there did not ache anymore than all the rest.

"Ooh, look!" Meg pointed at the sky. Bright celestial sparks were raining in the distance. She stood and walked slowly toward the side of the road, where a very weathered split-rail fence still stood waist-high. She rested her elbows on it as Nick followed her. He leaned in beside her, both of their eyes on the heavens,_ watching a meteor shower scratch the night with cold white fire._ _He thought he had never seen anything so beautiful._ She was breathing shallowly, shivering with goose bumps. She looked up into his face, a bit breathless. "This is incredible," she whispered. There was a small breeze drifting over them. Her eyes were very bright.

He nodded, his hand reaching almost uncontrollably for her hair, which had fallen across her cheek. He brushed it back dreamily. As he did so, her hand touched his and in a breath he was kissing her. Her lips were soft and pliant and tasted of raspberries she'd been eating on the side of the road earlier. He deepened his kiss, feeling her lips part easily as her hands reached up to his shoulders. Her body was tense, but he realized how urgently he wanted her. He reached his arms around her, clutching the small of her back and pressing her gently against him. He was conscious of her breasts, which seemed full against his chest. He could take her now, he thought. His heart was pounding. He let go of her lips reluctantly and drew back just enough to see her startled eyes. Her palms still rested gingerly on his shoulders.

"Nobody ever kissed me before," she said, with some wonder.

Nick blinked, his eyebrow twitching slightly. He released her, feeling the cool night air come between them again. His skin was clammy. He stepped back, weighing her reaction.

"That was … nice. I liked it," she added quickly. "I like you. I really do. Nick, I …" She wanted to tell him to kiss her again, that she wanted more, maybe everything. Her heart felt like it had stopped still, even though it was thudding wildly. She imagined that she'd felt him, that part of him that could join them, pressed firmly against her abdomen. But she felt awkward and thought that was probably a mistake of her mind. She caressed the back of his hand with her thumb and thought that the moment was lost. Her thoughts trailed off in a soft whisper "… just don't know."

Nick regarded her, understanding dawning. Was it him? He'd believed she must have some experience. She seemed comfortable, flirty. She was definitely very pretty. She must have had boyfriends between high school and college. But then his mind ticked back over her story. Her father's suicide, that had to have isolated her as a child. She spent the awkward years of middle school recovering from a horrible accident, after which she was still afraid to take control of a car. She talked about her family but not about friends. Maybe she was more withdrawn from that world than he knew. It was awful of him to rush her. They were standing in a virtual graveyard, one that encompassed the whole country, probably the whole globe. The night sky unfurled behind them, and those falling stars pointed to how many corpses, how many bodies laid out in every direction? He stroked her hair again, lightly. Apprehensive, he signed, "I like you. I think you're a beautiful girl." He swept his hand across the sky. "It is a beautiful night. I'm lucky to be here with you. I want to be with you."

She shifted on her feet uncomfortably. Her shyness was not coquetry. She was self-conscious and inhibited. "I would like to know you better," she said. "There were guys who asked me out ... After awhile, those boys who knew me stopped asking. They thought I was uptight. Maybe I was." She remembered one pep rally she'd been goaded into attending during junior high, watching the cheerleaders go through their motions like mindless drones. The constant whoops and applause burst in her ears like a drum major's cymbals. All those people seemed to swim together like a sea of cicadas, devouring green faces and leaving husks behind. She'd walked out numbly and Sal, the bookish but studiedly gregarious boy who dragged her there, laid his hand on her shoulder just as she placed hers on the exit. "I can't be here," she said then. "All those people are crazy." And she meant it.

But this was like no other situation she had ever been in. Nick was the same age, but he was nothing like the calculating, shallow young men who approached her in the halls or the coffee shop during her first two semesters of college. Rather than flick him off her like a horse swishing its tail at a gnat, she wanted him to accept her. He was real, and Meg was struck with the strange and uneasy feeling that she had been in a walking sleep before the plague and only just woke up.

"Everything is so different!" she blurted. "I don't know if there's anyone else." Nick's face fell. "No! That's not what I meant at all. Whoa, I'm bad at this." She drew her hands over her cheeks, wanting that magical moment back, so natural and easy, like something out of a romance novel.

The darkness seemed to encroach, till she turned her face up to the dizzying stars. She let out a brief and tinny laugh, but when she looked back at his frowning face she realized what she had to do. With some trepidation, she reached for his eye patch, and when he didn't flinch, she pulled it away. "I just wanted to see," she whispered. His eye was still there, just as startlingly hazy as his other one, but blood-shot and accented by the ugly yellowness of fading bruises. Tentatively, she rose up on her toes and closed her own eyes, lightly kissing the tender skin there. Nick held in his breath. Standing back, she smiled sweetly but also a little sadly. "It's ... it's like we're supposed to be here, right?" Her eyes were very wide. He nodded, wanting her with a bitter-sweet longing which he knew he'd have to stand.

He drew his hand over his chin thoughtfully. "Come on," he signed. "I'm tired. I think we should go to sleep and move on tomorrow." She smiled again. As he hooked one arm over her shoulder to lead her back to their sleeping bags, Nick did know that _whatever lay ahead, he was glad to be alive._

* * *

She came awake crying and clutching at his arm. He was holding her. It had seemed right enough, miraculously easy to fall asleep with her warmth beside him and the delicious thought that she could become his. Everyone he'd ever loved had either died or deserted him. There was a sweet irony in realizing that this new world, emptied of the masses, might now offer him some chance at happiness. This joy was tempered by the realization that she was going to rely on him for guidance and protection, something she might not have considered. He had, and when they passed a recently slaughtered deer late that afternoon, it might have dawned on her as well. So he held her, for the time being chastely. She accepted his kisses, but he did not press for more. He was used to sublimating his body's will. There hadn't been many opportunities for sex, fewer for love. He knew there were women he could have, if he wished to part with some of his hard-earned dough. But he really didn't want to take it like that.

* * *

There was one woman. He found her in Georgia, at a struggling cotton farm where he hired on. That was five years ago. He'd been seventeen, out on his own for barely a year. She was the wife of his boss, a man who spent very little time at home. There were two small tow-headed children, a boy and a girl. Sarah Bishop was lonely and frustrated. It didn't happen that summer, though they built a friendship. She was generous and warm to him. She laughed and touched his shoulder possessively, made a point of inquiring after him and sending him on his way with an extra week of wages. He found himself thinking about her all the time. He thought about her at night in the hayloft where he slept after a hot day's work, his back burnt. He was invited back for planting in the spring. He never realized that double entendre till after it began. She was 27, just old enough to still be young. She took him to her bed while the children played outside. He guessed he'd loved her, but her need for him was more elemental. He came back to her. For two more summers they shared rendezvous in her marriage bed, in the barn, even in the back of her car. He was hot for her, waiting each year as the dry months ticked by till he saw her again.

Then last August he found out. All that time, he'd known he was sharing a man's wife, but he'd felt some joy in thinking himself her only lover. Then he surprised her one day. He knew the children were playing at a friend's house. He watched as a car drove up and took them away. He'd intended to please her. He had a basket of fresh peaches from the orchard out back. He walked in the back screen door, which was open to the breeze, setting them on the table. He couldn't call for her, but thinking of the way her lips hungrily devoured him, he knew she'd be glad for his company. He left the basket on the table and walked upstairs. If there were sounds that should have alarmed him, he couldn't hear them. Not the rocking of the springs or the panting and heaving. He pushed her door open lightly, thinking she might be taking a late afternoon nap. She was made for drowsy stretches and lackadaisical caresses. As the door creaked, two faces looked up. She was with their primary truck driver. Nick knew the man well enough. They were no friends. He was older and brawnier than Nick, built like a bull with skin just as red and a temperament to match. He had a thatch of curly sun-bronzed hair on both his head and his chest, and Nick often wondered that the hands hadn't nicknamed him Curly. He guessed nobody dared.

"Christ in Hell!" the man roared, swiping the sweaty sheets around his beefy loins as he stood up.

"Jimmy, no! He's not worth it." Those were the last words Nick ever knew from the woman he thought had cared for him. He left Sarah gripping the arm of her Samson, the flaxen hair he'd once admired sweaty and matted over her face. He would never know how long she'd played him, played the both of them and her husband for a fool. Probably from the beginning. He supposed there could have been others, her hunger insatiable, but he supposed he no longer cared.

The time for his sojourn in Georgia came and went while he purposefully planted his feet in the other direction. He never planned on stopping that way again. Of course, the wages weren't quite as regular in other parts of the south, but he was getting by well enough till Ray Booth and his cronies decided to fall on him. That was all before …

* * *

The red-haired girl thrashed at his side. She was moaning and weeping in her sleep at once. Nick came alert. He'd been between worlds, in that shallow dream state where all memories blend. He raised himself on an elbow and stroked her narrow shoulder. She batted his hand away and suddenly sat up, perspiration beading her forehead, which was ashen in the gloom. She let out a strangled shriek which choked into a sob as she realized again where she was, but she was now shaking uncontrollably. "Nick! Oh God, Nick, it was Jake! He came back for me. He was dragging Mom by the arm. His mouth opened and this awful black light spilled out." She shook her head. That wasn't right. "No. Light isn't black. It was oil, or blood long since turned to sludge in the earth. It was horrible, Nick."

He was holding her, trying to still her tremors as her tears wet his shoulder, so most of these words were lost on him. He knew she was letting it out and he thought that would help. As her body slowly stilled, she became more cognizant. She was aware of the young man comforting her and the dim porch where they had spread their sleeping bags. It was July 4. No, by the slate chinks of sky through the beams above them it was now very early on July 5. She let her head rest on his chest, hearing his heart beat comfortably beneath her ear.

After a few moments, as the sky began to lighten around them, she raised red eyes to his. "These dreams are so vivid, Nick. I don't know how I can stand them. I haven't had dreams like this since waking up after the accident." He nodded, rubbing her back conciliatorily. "That black sludge Jake let out of his mouth, it took form. It began writhing and gathering and slowly it turned into something like a man." Nick shivered, feeling an awful premonition. Meg's dream was eerily similar to his own visions of _a negative man, a black hole in the shape of a man._ He wanted to say something, to dispel this terrible fascination, but nothing came to him. Instead, he kissed her lightly on the top of her head, feeling chill as the summer morn grew.

* * *

**A/N: Okay, I'm going to admit it. My heroine is – physically – loosely based on Tiffany. You know, the '80's pop singer? Honest to God, I came up with this idea in 1991, before a miniseries was ever made based on this work. I wanted Nick to have a decent match from the very beginning, as his encounter with Julie Lawry struck me as something of a joke. I was 14 myself, and impressionable me … I kind of took it to heart he'd sleep right off the bat with a girl that at least "looked" my own age. However, I was a shy and sheltered teenager, so I found her character both insulting and demeaning. Later, Shawnee Smith hammed it up, but failed to make Julie repulsive (though she did bear an interesting resemblance to my theoretical stand-in). Nick deserved a more genuine girl, for certain, in a story where everybody else paired off. Even Harold and Nadine found each other. As warped as their relationship was, they had potential to make it, had they just surrendered "that one little thing." So … I became obsessed with imagining an appropriate match for Nick. Having little experience in my own peer group, the best I could do was a toss-up between Debbie Gibson and Tiffany. For serious. At that time, unhappy with my own body, I imagined that he'd probably be most attracted to the waify blonde, so I named her Margaret (Meg) Clancy. She was a vegetarian. I now view that as just unforgivably idealistic. However, the twin idea was early implemented. I find it almost creepily coincidental that there is another fic on here that utilizes this theme, although it is markedly different from mine. Before I ever read **_**The Gunslinger**_**, Meg's twin was to be named Jake. The details of the car accident have always been the same. As has the character of Ben and his handicap (lending Meg experience with ASL) although he was originally supposed to be an older brother. I have changed him into a cousin for a few reasons, chiefly because I thought Meg's character could benefit from drawing on this subconscious "crush," which also might spur her attachment to Nick, without making it too creepy incestuous. All in all, this is a character with a lot of Freudian hang-ups. She's not supposed to be too healthy, and though she might be pure or virtuous, she's also quite damaged. Anyway, that's why I eventually surrendered to my better instincts and Tiffany's profile won hands down. As a badge of victory, I have awarded my fiery-haired vixen another moniker, though equally Irish. So there is the story of Meghan O'Malley's invention, and the interesting synchronicities surrounding it.**


	3. I Don't Want to Live on the Moon

**A/N: T****his chapter focuses on their meeting Tom Cullen and how Meg's presence might change those circumstances. From here on out, it will be much harder to weave canon with my story. In order to avoid direct repetition as much as possible, I will skip over any and all sections that I feel would not be significantly altered by Meg's intro. Dialogue that remains largely unchanged (such as that which goes on at Mother Abagail's house) I will also skip over, perhaps indicating Meg's perception of the scene with only a line or two before proceeding to the next major part in which a significant change is exacted. For the purposes of originality, these will sometimes be extenuations of brief scenes in the original work, usually those that occurred from Nick's POV. I am trying to keep Nick and all others in character. There will be some entirely original scenes from Meg's POV, particularly in the city of Boulder.**

**Many thanks to Paul Simon also. Verse 5 of "American Tune" is quoted at the beginning of canon Book II: "On the Boarder." This summarizes so much between the lines. Don't forget to review! Thanks.**

_Many's the time I've been mistaken, and many times confused  
Yes and I've often felt forsaken, and certainly misused  
Oh but I'm all right, I'm all right, I'm just weary to my bones  
Still, you don't expect to be bright and Bon Vivant  
So far away from home, so far away from home_

_I don't know a soul who's not been battered  
I don't have a friend who feels at ease  
I don't know a dream that's not been shattered  
Or driven to its knees_

_Oh but it's all right, it's all right, we've only lived so well so long  
Still, when I think of the road we're traveling on  
I wonder what's gone wrong, I can't help it  
I wonder what's gone wrong_

_And I dreamed I was dying  
I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly  
And looking back down at me, smiled reassuringly  
And I dreamed I was flying  
And high up above my eyes could clearly see  
The Statue of Liberty sailing away to sea  
And I dreamed I was flying_

_Oh we come on the ship they call the Mayflower  
We come on the ship that sailed the moon  
We come in the age's most uncertain hour  
And sing an American tune  
Oh and it's all right, it's all right it's all right  
You can't be forever blessed_

_Still, tomorrow's gonna be another working day  
And I'm trying to get some rest  
That's all, I'm trying to get some rest _– Paul Simon, "American Tune"

* * *

Meg saw the man lying in the middle of the street. She suspected he might be alive only because his body was not discolored and bloated like the others she had seen, but Nick was riding ahead of her and she had no way to signal him. When the man stood up, Nick was taken thoroughly aback and he stopped so suddenly that he went flying. Seeing him sprawl flat on the pavement, ice clutched her heart and a terrible rush of adrenaline washed over her. As she coasted to a stop and kneeled down to help him, he was already rising to his hands and knees, blood oozing from a scrape across his forehead. Her ears were thudding so loudly she barely registered the stranger speaking as he staggered toward them.

_"Holy gee, mister, but you took a tumble. Didn't you just? My laws!"_

Meg helped Nick to his feet and dabbed at various scratches with a bandanna that had been wrapped around her handlebar to absorb sweat. "Do you feel dizzy?" she asked. "Is anything broken?" She knew only too well the damage resulting from head trauma. They'd have no chance of medical care if either one of them sustained an injury.

Nick shook his head, as the man behind her dismissed the problem, "Aw shucks lady, he'll be all right." Meg resisted the urge to turn and slap the fellow.

She stiffened. "You just startled us, that's all." As she walked to the curb with Nick, she looked at the man. He was obviously drunk, still clutching an open bottle of liquor, but there was something else about him that struck her as off. _Nick raised his eye patch and swiped his forearm across it._ Meg handed him the wadded up bandanna, which he took gratefully. They sat down for a moment by a car, and Nick examined his forehead in the silver bumper. The blond man stood slightly lop-sided, watching with an utterly blank expression in his cornflower-blue eyes.

"My name is Meghan O'Malley. This is Nick Andros," she said, touching Nick's elbow lightly. He looked over at her and then at the man looming nearby. She hoped he wouldn't mind if she spoke for him. "He's deaf and can't speak, but he can tell what you're saying if you speak to him directly."

"Oh. I'm Tom Cullen," he said, then looked at Nick anew and said again, _"Holy gee, mister, but you took a tumble. Didn't you just? My laws!"_ The lack of change in his tone struck Meg as simple, but she didn't know if it was just the alcohol or a genuine mental challenge. She suspected it was the latter.

Nick was standing up, reaching for her hand again. She stood and he gestured down the street. "I'm going to get some disinfectant and bandage this. Come with me." She nodded and turned to the other man.

"We're going into the drugstore," she said.

Nick lifted up his bike and checked it for damage before climbing on and Meg followed his lead. Tom Cullen trailed behind them as they got back on their bikes and rode slowly up the street. There was a sign for Norton's up ahead with an R/X beside it. "You can't go in there, you know," he was saying, as Meg and Nick placed their bikes up on kickstands. "It's closed. M-O-O-N, that spells closed. I know _the sign says OPEN, but the sign is a liar. Too bad, because I would dearly love an ice cream soda._" Meg ignored this stream of babble. He really must be simple.

Nick was already trying the door. Finding it locked, he turned around and spotted a waste can. Holding his arm up with a stern look for Meg to step back, he proceeded to dash it straight through the window. There was an awful crash of glass cascading the sidewalk and interior, and then he reached in and neatly unlocked the door.

_"Hey, mister, you can't do that! That's illegal! M-O-O-N and that spells il-legal._ Hey, lady, don't go in there!"

Meg was following Nick inside and turned around exasperatedly. Of all the people they might meet, why did it have to be an imbecile? "He has to get some band-aids. You've got to understand that."

She found Nick by the first-aid supplies, loading up on things. Meg took a bag of cotton balls from him and then they walked to the counter and began cleaning his wounds. As he wiped Bactine on his forehead, she gestured back outside and tapped her temple, "I don't think that man is all there in the head, Nick." He nodded ruefully.

Meg had out a large band-aid, which she helped position over his scrape. Just then, Tom Cullen came in, his sense of immorality apparently having been over-ridden by the young couple's insistence.

"Mr. Norton would be awful mad if he knew we was in here. If he didn't go up to Heaven or leave for Kansas City. _My mom always says people leaves but no people comes back._"

Meg looked at Nick and raised her eyebrows. Nick shrugged. Meg sighed, realizing that Tom Cullen, too, was lonely. Smiling sweetly for the man, she said, "I'm sure he wouldn't mind people helping themselves, Tom."

* * *

_There was a small town square fronting on the courthouse_, with a statue dedicated to the veterans of World War II in the center. Across from this, there was a three story inn with a tavern on the first floor. The Mayflower Inn, it was called. The sign featured a ship's silhouette. It was here Nick decided they would sleep. He would have slept out in the open if he were still alone. They'd spent all afternoon with Tom Cullen, gaining a sense of the man's character. He didn't believe Tom could be dangerous, but he'd caught several shy looks in Meg's direction. Nick would just as soon Tom not catch them unawares, especially given the girl's night frights. He had to break a window, again, which was a good sign. It probably meant the place was empty, closed for business when everybody "went to Kansas City," to borrow a phrase from Tom. There were rooms on both the top floors. By the time he came back out of the building, Meg met him carrying several bags of supplies.

"I think Tom went on back to his house," she said. "I got some changes of clothes and some gallons of water. I'm going to take as good a bath as I can."

Nick gave her an "Okey-dokey" before quickly grabbing some of the heavier stuff. They found keys in a small office behind the bar. The place was definitely deserted. Nick shrugged his shoulders. "It looks like we've got our pick, but they only have singles." His eyes held the question.

Meg blushed, swiping one key off its hook. In truth, she didn't want to be alone. "I've spent the last two nights with you, Nick Andros. I think I'll take my chances. If you're tired of my kicking you, you can sleep on the floor."

Nick grinned. His eyes had a habit of scrunching into crow's feet. It made his youthful face appear more seasoned and complex.

The room was on the second floor. He humbly left her alone to do her thing, going back outside to walk up and down the streets for awhile. May, Oklahoma was a ghost town. Nick reflected that all of America was like this now. The dots on the map were nothing more than grave markers. Here or there were lost souls, _rattling around like discarded peas in a forgotten tin can._

He walked back by the drugstore, realizing that his feet had led him purposefully here. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and wondered if he should grab condoms. It would probably happen, sooner or later. He wondered how long he could sleep beside her without testing the boundaries. It was a harsh joke really. Not if you were the last person on earth; wasn't that the ultimate rejection? But here he stood, one of the last survivors in a desolate world, with a pretty girl waiting for him up in a hotel room. Only he didn't know if he was getting laid or not because somehow the rules were all messed up. He imagined broaching it to her. Look, now it's our civic duty to repopulate … Only he couldn't imagine making her pregnant. Who was left to bring babies into this questionable world: a deaf mute and a neurotic girl, with a retarded man for their baby's godfather? No. Nick didn't think that would work at all. He ducked back in the drugstore and found a small pack of condoms which he stuffed surreptitiously in his pocket. It didn't hurt to be prepared.

* * *

When he let himself back in the little room, she was sitting on the bed reading a thick book. She smiled a little sheepishly. "I left you some water in the bathroom."

Nick got the message. He went in and found three gallons of water, along with a toothbrush still in its package and all the other amenities. Her own things were neatly spread on the toilet tank on top of a towel. He shrugged, opened a bar of soap and stripped off his clothes. He stood in the bathtub and soaped himself lightly, rinsing carefully with half the water. Then he lathered a dollop of shampoo in his hair and rinsed with most of the rest. He brushed his teeth—what was left of them, anyway—and pulled on a clean Hanes shirt and a pair of gray track shorts she'd thought to leave him. They were a little loose, but it was a decent gesture. It occurred to him that she might have an ulterior motive, and that thought lifted his spirits. He was feeling rather daring when he opened the door again. She was still sitting with her back against the vinyl headboard and the book propped on her lap. The room was dimly lit by the same lantern they'd brought with them yesterday. He noted an empty battery package on the end table beside it. The room was clean but rather musty. Meg had opened the window wide, but there was little breeze moving the curtains. The walls were decorated with twenty year old orange toned wallpaper and the floors were covered in contoured avocado green carpeting. Nick didn't think many people had a reason to stay in May, Oklahoma. He had seen cheap rooms like this before. The occupants rarely had a happy story.

He sat down beside her on the worn chenille bedspread, reading the title of her book. _Plexus: The Rosy Crucifixion_. She was about halfway through. So the virgin reads Henry Miller, he thought. That figures. Meg looked up at him and closed her place. She pulled her knees up. She was wearing a v-necked Coca-Cola shirt that fit her like a tent and a pair of black nylon running shorts with white piping. She indicated the garb, "You take what you can get."

Nick raised his eyebrows briefly, then nodded and smoothed his own dime-store clothes. "Thank you," he signed, winking conspiratorially. Then he looked back around the room. There was a small RCA on the oak-veneered dresser, but it would never work again. No channels for distraction tonight. He looked back at her pointedly. "Are you tired?" He himself had enjoyed a brief nap while sitting with Tom near the war memorial. He supposed long hours of exercise and restless nights had finally conspired with a sultry July sun; he conked flat out while watching the man's lips make stories.

Meg had sat by him and shook her head no when Tom, helpfully, raced off and returned carrying an armload of blankets. She'd rolled just one under Nick's head. Then she sat reading by him in the shade till he woke up several hours later. They'd eaten with Tom, a meal that consisted of fried potatoes from a can and little crab cakes they made using canned crabmeat with crushed Ritz crackers and rehydrated egg product, celery and onions. It wasn't bad, and it was mostly Nick's idea. Now she shrugged. This was awkward, she thought. Last night was still bright in her mind, as was his taste and feel.

Nick picked up her book and weighed it between his hands before handing it back. "I read _Tropic of Cancer_, found it on one of those racks with old paperbacks missing their covers."

That elicited a smile. She nodded. "That was what led me to this. It's a trilogy. It's not as concise, obviously. It's interesting and poetic. He writes with passion and detail, but with an unfocused drive. I think he was searching for inspiration, something he calls the angel just now. He kept chasing it and it kept eluding him." Normally self-conscious, Meg brightened obviously when given a chance to talk about books.

"Well, the man wanted to be a god, or a demon pulling the framework out from God."

"Huh, I never thought of it like that. He was sort of the prototypical dharma bum. Miller and Lawrence Durrell. Did you know that Somerset Maugham based the character of Larry Darrell in _The Razor's Edge_ on Durrell? My Twentieth Century Lit professor taught us that. If it weren't for those guys, there would never have been a Beat generation."

He was shaking his head. He was a bit engrossed by her slender legs.

"You know," she began impishly, "in a way, I think you're something of a dharma bum. I mean, you've lived that way." If she was leading him, she had no idea where.

Nick made a guffawing gesture. "I don't know if that's a compliment," he noted wryly.

"Oh, it is!" Her eyes shone idealistically. He wanted to kiss her again, but she was taken by a sudden passion, gesticulating wildly. "But aren't we all dharma bums now? It's kind of grandly beautiful. I mean, look, everything's free now. Right?"

Nick was nodding objectively.

"There's never been such a glut of resources! No more poverty, no more class systems ..." She caught his eye. "You know, my grandmother, she wasn't pleased with my father, but in her mind, he was at least an established middle class man. She ran a third generation ranch whose overseers were responsible for hiring on hundreds of wetbacks every year. Not to insult you, Nick, but if I'd come around with you three weeks ago … it's not hard to imagine what she would have said."

Nick raised his eyebrow.

"A couple years ago, I got it in my head and told her I was becoming vegetarian. Well! I sat and listened to an hour-long speech about how her great-grandfather came over from Ireland and took a little parcel of land. But it was her grandfather who turned that pathetic sheep farm into an empire. She told me it was investing in longhorns that did it. Longhorns were the capital responsible for my family's comfort and she wouldn't sit by while I snubbed my debt." Meg shifted, getting more comfortable as she stretched her legs back out beside him. "So she marched me out to her kitchen and she fried me a hamburger and she sat down and watched me eat it. That was the end of my aspiring animal rights bid." She laughed lightly and caught his eye with a twinkle. "Right now, I guess I'd give my inheritance for a McDonald's double cheeseburger and fry. Only that's the thing. Because there won't be any more McDonald's and whatever my Granma put down in her will—and I don't know what she intended or how much she was really worth; I have no doubt it would have given me a leg up on life—that will never matter, you see. Because all those thousands and thousands of steers are still alive, but there's no one left to keep them. I have no doubt they'll bust out of their pens and roam as wild as buffalo by winter, probably sooner."

Nick placed his hand on her knee. She was deep in thought, quiet for a moment. Then, the wistful smile faded and she shook her head. "I don't understand it at all. The sickness took all our horses and left all those stupid cattle. My own horse—Fawn was her name, I named her when she was still a skittish, clumsy little colt—she died the same day my Granma got sick. We called my mother's sister down from Houston; there was barely anybody coming into work. Granma wanted to go to St. Luke's because that was where her husband went. It was just our luck they were still allowing cars in and out. That was June 23rd and the next day she died. Two days later my Aunt Missy left her apartment and never came back. She was sick already and the city was like London in World War II. I'll never know if she succumbed to the flu somewhere or if she was a victim of the soldiers or the rioters or what."

"There's a lot we'll never know."

"I guess." She fell silent, staring morosely at the wall above the television. She stifled a yawn. "I talk too much, I think."

"No." Nick shook his head, his eyes crinkled nicely.

"I do." She winked at him. "Ben used to tell me that I forget who's not listening. I also forget my point half the time. Anyway, I was getting down to it. We might have finally entered Chomsky's ideal anarchy, the superflu being the great equalizer that communism never was."

"Maybe." Nick eyed the wallpaper darkly. He noticed the corner edges peeling and suddenly felt smarmy despite his cleansing. He realized the pack of condoms he'd left in his jeans pocket in the bathroom were going to stay there. He looked at Meg and leaned in to plant a kiss on her cheek that would have been appropriate for a sister. Barely brushing the fabric covering her cleavage, _he felt warm_, but as he pulled away he caught her doeish eyes and knew he'd feel like a heel if he actually tried to seduce her. Whether she wanted him to or not didn't matter. It was the room. It was an awful, soiled, ratty place. "You certainly do give a man some things to think about for the night." He lay down on the other side of the bed, folding his hands behind his head.

Meg blinked, holding her breath. After a moment, she set her book on the night stand and dimmed the light to its lowest switch. There was no way she was shutting it off. Uh-uh. She lay down on her side, facing away from Nick. She watched the curtains swish ever so slightly whenever a humid finger of air found its way inside. She listened to the silence, entirely conscious of the man beside her. She didn't think there was any way she could sleep. She stared at the patterns of the walls, then the carpet. The color reminded her of dusty corn husks. She closed her eyes. Vaguely, she had a tune stuck in her head. She hummed a little, knowing Nick couldn't hear her. Slowly, the humming turned into the buzz of distant crickets in her ears, and sleep overtook her.

* * *

She was in a rustling green place. A cool and gentle breeze pricked her bare arms, stirring the leaves that gathered all around her. The smell that wafted into her nostrils was deep and sweet and luscious, as specific and intimate as a newborn baby's skin. It was corn, Meg saw, brushing her fingers over the crisp leaves. A sea of corn and there was a melodious strumming floating on the night tide. At first she thought it was the music of the stars themselves, twanging and vibrating and gently tingling the small hairs at the nape of her neck. Then she realized that there was a song climbing up with it. Grasping a tuft of wiry satin, she twirled it between her thumb and forefinger, mesmerized by the long and mellow notes of a very weary but nurturing voice.

_"There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole  
__There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul"_

Meg suddenly felt certain it was this steadfast voice that grew the corn running away on all sides of her so tall and stately.

_"If you cannot preach like Peter  
__If you cannot pray like Paul  
__Oh you can take the love of Jesus  
__You can say he died for us all"_

Meg found herself drawn hypnotically to the source of this song. Stumbling to the edge of the corn, she found herself suddenly in the midst of a cozy, weathered clearing. The dirt beneath her feet was packed down and soft, more like a well-trod carpet than a yard. It seemed so familiar and eternal at once that Meg was almost certain she must have been here before, but she could not remember when. From the u-shaped branch of an apple tree, a worn tire swing dangled in the balmy night air, hesitantly twisting and untwisting every time the breeze stirred. The branch itself was stripped bare of bark, worn smooth from generations of swinging. Beyond this stately stamp of Eden, there grew a gray little ramshackle homestead, not much more than a shack, really. Its porch slanted into the earth on old jacks and its tar roof bowed down from the middle, where a rusted stovepipe rose crookedly, thumbing its nose at the moon. On that porch a gnarled old woman sat and rocked, her guitar purring on her lap contentedly as a cat. She seemed to be grown into the porch and the house and the scene itself, as right as rain, Meg thought. This is the place to be rooted.

She saw Meg, surely, as her old hymn thrummed to a close. She set the polished wood instrument by; it seemed half as big as she was, and certainly heavier.

"Don't dawdle, now, girl. C'mon up where I can see ya!"

Meg obediently stepped forward. The moon peeping from behind the stovepipe seemed to follow her as she climbed up to this ancient crone and sat on the top porch step. "I feel like I've been here," she said, wonderingly. "Your song was lovely."

"Well, I don't know as I did as right as Mahalia Jackson could, but in my prime I might've. Most folks what know call me Mother Abagail. Ain't nobody left to 'member when I was a chit like you."

"Oh," Meg said. She wondered if she should be offended, but it seemed like this thin old lady was as gossamer as fairy wings or spider webbing and could mean her about as much harm.

"That's a good man you got there, chil'. But he's impetuous." She pronounced it mm-pet-yuss. "I s'pose youth is always impetuous. But that's a lux'ry we can't right afford."

Meg looked up, seeing for the first time the eagle sharpness in Mother Abagail's eyes, the staunch set of her jaw. "Nick?!" She was shocked and a terrible iciness seemed to clutch her heart, sealing foreboding in. "What do you mean?"

"Only that you got to look up, girl. Look up to the mighty and bow your head when told!"

"I … I will, I think. But how will I know?"

"Well, you knew to come here, di'n't ya?"

"I guess I did. Or did you bring me?"

The old lady laughed softly and began rocking again. "That's a good'n darlin'. I'll have to think on that now."

"Oh. Okay."

She was on the verge of asking "Where is 'here'?" when the knowledge seemed to come to her all at once, and she found herself whispering, "Home. Hemingford Home. There's no place like home."

The dream was already misty as morning dew, and Mother Abagail's raspy voice was fading from Meg's ears as she swam slowly awake, but she definitely heard her calling, "Bring on t'other boy. God's got a place for'm, too."

* * *

**A/N: Well, I'm not too sure about where this scene went. I didn't begin intending to head into a book review, but Nick is a literate character and so is Meg. Anyway, if Stephen King can have Glen and Stu and Harold and Fran digress on subjects like Edgar Cayce and experiments on psychic phenomena for the purposes of progressing the story, then I thought referring to Miller might actually shed some light on Nick's character. I see him as molded in that tradition, world-weary for his age. I hope these scenes aren't tedious. I know it feels like one after another of these two people going to bed together with a lot of lead up and then nothing happening. I don't really want to stray into a mature rating. If there is a love scene, it won't be downright graphic. Right now, the plan is to have them get together, but I do have some interesting suppositions going on about what the introduction of Julie is going to do to their cozy little group.**

**Things that are bothering me … **

******First of all, I have rolled the whole Nozz-A-La vs. Coke concept over and over in my brain. In _Wizard and Glass_, Roland's gang finds the emptied post-plague world of 1986, where Nozz-A-La brand beverage exists instead of Coke. I have decided that since King wrote _Wizard and Glass_ after he had updated _The Stand_ to 1990, the 1986 _Stand _world fell into limbo, hence why the "Emerald City" now appears in Kansas there. In the end, Meg wears a Coca-Cola shirt to indicate that my AU does not coincide with either the 1986 when or the alternate version of _The Stand Uncut_. It is entirely Another When. Although … it may still be linked to those other worlds on some fourth-dimensional, and possibly psychic plain. Of course, Randall Flagg remains a pan-dimensional wizard.**

**In Ch. 2, when Meg goes in the bathroom following their first night together, I skip between their POV, which can leave an aura of mystery over exactly what would make a girl take so long in a bathroom that supposedly doesn't function. In this chapter, I focused on the messiness of what are basically marathon days of bike-riding and the delicate balance of two strangers getting to know each other while having to take care of personal necessities/issues in close proximity. Also, they are gaining somewhat of a dependence on each other. **

**This brings me to clarify the water situation, which remains a bit baffling in canon. I've read this book many times and I have finally decided that either something was left out in the many processes of editing, or King just never brought it together clearly.**

**1) The power goes off everywhere across the nation **_**except**_** Las Vegas, which runs its own generators. However, when our power goes off, our water does not necessarily stop running! Or maybe it does, if the grids are shut down long enough. In my experience, hot water will stop as soon as the water heater cools down, but water will still come from the faucets and pipes. Of course, there are pumps meant for purification and filtering, which would probably shut down the taps without maintenance. Therefore, as soon as the purified reservoir supplies were emptied, the taps would dry up. I've tried looking this up, but my research brings me nowhere, short of actually questioning and/or touring a water purification facility. For right now, I'm going on this supposition, because …**

**2) King makes a big deal about Mother Abagail's need for an old-fashioned outhouse and hand pump, how conveniently those come in. The survivors of the superflu need to boil water; at Mother Abagail's house in Boulder someone has to fetch her water from Boulder Creek that has to be boiled (pg 640). Larry relates a story to Frannie about how his group was without water while camping on a farm, until he figured out how to get the windmill running to deliver water to the well (pg 667). It is mentioned that there was a shortage of bottled water in some areas as sick people were stocking up during the scourge of the superflu. There's an extended scene focused around Frannie's attempt to wash clothes in a large bucket outside her and Stu's apartment, and several characters search for washing boards, illustrating the reversion to a pre-plumbing, pioneer society in many ways.**

**3) Discrepancy: Following a period of introspection about political subterfuge, Nick "wanted a shower. He felt obscurely dirty"; he then "paused halfway to the bathroom" (pg 658-659). This seems to be an inexplicable digression in continuity. Then, more than 100 pgs later, Harold takes dinner with Nadine, "having splurged and taken a two bucket shower" (788). Did King just forget while writing Nick's scene that the water wasn't running? Or was he so wrapped up in his storyline that he forgot to explain from an observer's viewpoint? I can see how individuals living in that situation would get used to mundane events like fetching water and washing out of buckets. In most writing, the commonplace rarely requires explanation unless it fuels the storyline. In literature, we are never treated to lengthy expositions on characters' bowel movements (unless they're sick with dysentery or have rectal cancer or something). So maybe King didn't want to over-beat the water problem.**

**Conclusion: Since the author has neglected to state a reason for his characters' water dilemma and/or crisis, two conclusions might be reached. People could be afraid, for good reason, that the water supply and/or reservoirs have been contaminated. With all the dead bodies decomposing all over, that is a strong possibility. However, one would think that King (normally a meticulous detailer, particularly for the macabre) would explain this rationale. Then, there would be individuals who lacked that insight, who would never think to steer clear of the tap, no matter how stale or fetid the water smelled, unless it was really turning to slurry. Since he entirely ignores these points, it seems a given that the taps and the toilets just aren't functioning everywhere across the country. I'm going with this mode of operation. Of course, I'd rather not dwell on bathroom details such as characters having to use make-shift chamber pots. It's high summer; I would assume nobody minds not heating their water over much for bathing. It would usually be room temperature in any case.**

**So, back to POV in Ch. 2: In the interests of reading between the lines, I figure if Meg only had to pee, she would probably use the toilet anyway, maybe pouring some water down it if the flush didn't function. She's a practical girl and probably left a pitcher or two of water in there for washing up with. So basically she's just engaging in a normal morning routine. Either way, they don't foresee coming back to that little house in Arkansas in the future.**

**On another note, forgive me for any mistakes or assumptions I make in Nick's dialogue. I have made Meg proficient at ASL in the interests of creating a closer bond between the two characters. If it strikes anyone as overly coincidental, just remember that I'm working under the assumption that there is some predestination involved (synchronicity, alright). I myself am not practiced in ASL, so I really don't have any idea of language usage and rules, but I assume that Nick would be prone to brevity. I am also taking it for granted that he must have learned ASL from Rudy Sparks. (Stephen King is mute on the subject.) What teacher would help a deaf child learn to read and write without helping them learn ASL? It may be assumed that Meg becomes used to his lip-reading skills, so she might lapse between ASL and speech during their conversations. However, Nick would never have to revert to handing notes while in her presence, unless he wanted to communicate directly to a third person without asking her assistance. Which, of course, will often be the case later on.**

**I am a perfectionist and if something irritates me, I am likely to fiddle around and keep tweaking it. Just ignore most of my manic updates unless you really feel like rereading the whole thing just for an improved sentence or two. Also, this is the first fic I've posted, so I'm making rather random choices in format. I indicate where normal line breaks would appear in a chapter because the site formatting hasn't allowed me to show this another way.**

**I appreciate any and all feedback. Thanks.**


	4. Riders on the Storm

**A/N: ****Be forewarned—definitely slipping into an M rating here. Characters want what they want. And I want to draw an analogy between Nick and the storm that chases them. But this isn't XXX, just a little R****. I'm trying to stay within the limits of what King himself might write. I am endlessly indebted to him for this liberty.**

* * *

Pallid slivers were just beginning to sneak through the ugly nicotine-stained curtains when Meghan opened her eyes. She discovered that she had moved in her sleep and was in fact now entangled with the sleeping young man at her side. Her head was pillowed beside a tanned shoulder radiating the peppery smell of soap and sweat and sleepy male musk. Her left arm rested upon his lean chest, her hand riding up under his thin cotton shirt. She felt the dry warmth of his skin, the rhythmic rise and fall of his shallow breathing. Drowsily, she closed her eyes again, tracing her fingertips over the ridges of his ribs, the hollow of his stomach. Holding her breath, she could feel odd nubs of scabs that were still healing and was taken aback by her yearning to smooth those scars and hold him closer.

Nick woke as she nuzzled deeper into his side. The dawn was not far off. Her soft thigh was hooked over his bony hip and her breath was feathering his bicep. She felt tender and dewy and slight. He grasped her hand just as her curious fingers brushed his waist band, where there was definite evidence of his arousal. Turning to face her and shrugging off the blurriness of sleep, he caught her sheepish eyes before capturing her lips with a fierceness that nearly undid him. He plowed her easily onto her back, crushing her into the mattress and pushing his tongue between her lips. All the resolve he felt the night before was worn away as a tide of darkness stemmed from within. He was surprised at the violence inside himself. His hands snaked their way beneath her shirt, kneading her breasts insistently. As soon as he felt her nipples harden in his palms, he plunged lower; feeling the entrancing furrow of her waist and pleasant rise of her hips, he slid her shorts off between them.

Meg wriggled helpfully and wrapped her legs around his thighs wantonly. She looped her arms loosely about his back. He had one hand tangled in her hair and the other plying the valley of her panties. This was curiously strange and familiar at the same time, so she was torn between embarrassment and excitement. His breath was ragged and hot against her neck and the pressure of his body was almost suffocating. She kissed his salty shoulder gently, trying to shift accommodatingly, but as she did so he took her mouth again, bruising her lips. She tasted blood. Her body stiffened in response and she turned her face away.

This is what you want, he thought, warily. Is that it? You want to be fucked? He ground his hips against her and was actually startled when she moved tentatively beneath him. There was still a veil of clothing separating them, but the contours of her body fit neatly to his. For emphasis, he thrust several times against her, feeling the tightly wound knot of desire strain to break. He rose up on his knees so as to slide her shirt off and saw her eyes clenched tightly shut, her hair piled like autumn leaves around her. Her swollen lips were parted, panting shallowly. He could see anxiety plainly mingling with anticipation. No, this wasn't Sarah. What the hell was with him? The angry passion subsided almost as easily as it arose. He still wanted her, very much, but humility checked in, towing shame. He was going to hurt her if he didn't slow down.

Reluctantly, he acknowledged that there was a moment when—had she resisted him—he wouldn't have stopped, very likely would have been more inflamed. Worse, short of her scorn, there was no recompense in this brave new world. That was the problem. You could have anything you wanted; everything was just lying around for the taking. It was almost like a brick slamming him, how closely that revelation echoed the temptations thrown at him by his dream tormenter. Now who's such a nice guy? he wondered, unknowingly echoing another self-doubter. Hell, a week ago he was masquerading as a deputy. He'd be damned if he was going to be a rapist tomorrow. Not even on a technical misunderstanding, due to a default in his ability to register an audible yes or no. There would be more than enough men willing to go there. And sacrifice their humanity in the process.

Meg opened her eyes to see him kneeling over her, his face a stony mask. Her shirt was pushed up over her breasts, which felt raw, her body open and vulnerable. Self-consciously, she hitched it back down around her waist. She leaned up on her elbows expectantly. "Nick?"

"I'm afraid I was moving too fast for you," he signed.

She shook her head slowly and summoned her courage. "Please don't stop though," she whispered.

Nick's heart skipped a beat. "Are you sure you want to make love to me?"

She licked her lips, sitting up straight, and found his hands. Her fingers curled around his and she caught his eye. "Yeah, I really do."

He leaned back in to kiss her, more gently but with sweet urgency. Gratefully, she took him back into her arms. And that was how they met the morning light.

* * *

When she came awake for the second time, he was already gone. The sun now streaming through the chinked curtains must be at high noon. She was tempted to think that their sexy interlude was just another dream—a pleasant but fleeting conjuration—if it weren't for the lingering irritation down there, vaguely like rope burn. She felt like she'd been keelhauled. No, she thought, smiling secretly. Not that bad. She rolled onto her stomach, pulling his pillow into her face and stretching like a panther. The sheets, which were warm and slightly sticky surrounding her, were permeated with the salty, intimate odor they made together. She inhaled it deeply before throwing them off. She stood up a little awkwardly and looked back at the bed. Yep. She bled. There were some drying creases, speckled here and there as if she'd just started her period, but she knew it wasn't that. A little glad that he had wandered away for now, she took a deep breath and threw the blankets over it, smoothing everything back to its maiden state. Can't do the same for me, she thought wistfully.

She went in the bathroom and cleaned herself with a towel. The hastily opened package of prophylactics stared at her from the bathroom sink. In the mirror, she saw herself flush and try to stop grinning by gnawing her lip. In the liquid heat in which she basked, it had neither surprised nor embarrassed her when he got up and returned shaking the small foil packet questioningly. She just nodded and lay prone, waiting for the inevitable, which finally suffused her with an overwhelming fullness that pinched and cut her to the quick even as she accepted a totally alien presence as part of herself. It was very clearly defined: okay, I think I love him. There was absolutely no differentiation in Meg's young mind between the bordering states of love and lust.

She dressed herself dazedly, wondering that she didn't care right now to wash the various odors from her body. She was brushing her hair when he came back in. He was preceded by the repetitive bleating of a bicycle horn somewhere far down the street. Meg was on her way to the window when she heard the door behind her open and she nearly jumped. Then his arms enveloped her from behind and she dropped the brush limply, folding her hands over his, her eyes squeezing closed. Nick bent her head, pushing her hair aside to kiss her neck. He'd left several purplish-red marks there, he saw. Knowing he could, he reached up and briefly caressed her generous breasts through shirt and bra. He knew her now. Her breastbone was scattered with freckles—and also temporarily branded with hickeys—above pert rosebud nipples. He smelled her hair, which was still imbued with the fragrance of sex and possibly his own sweat. He pressed himself snugly into her back, thinking about having her in other positions. Later, he told himself. It was tempting to stay and make love to her again, but the urge to get back on the road was also great.

She was sighing. "Hmmm …" She turned around, placing her hand on his chest. "Where were you?" He smelled sweaty and dusty. There was a streak of grease on his cheek and his hands were blackened with it. Her eyes were quizzical, without accusation.

His eyelashes fluttered innocently. "You went right back to sleep and left me wide awake. I always thought it was supposed to be the other way around, but I guess I rested longer than you did yesterday. Either that or I exhausted you." Meg blushed and shook her head, her dimples appearing although she was attempting to frown and nibble her lip at the same time. He found the tumultuous expression endearing. "Then I went outside and found Tom Cullen playing with some toy cars and a garage he found someplace. He was a little ashamed that he took them out of the store display, and he wanted confirmation that it was okay, which I tried to give him. What I hope you don't mind is that I invited him with us." He paused, waiting for her to protest, and was surprised when her eyes lit up.

"I don't know why you'd think that! I was going to ask you earlier—right off when we woke up—but, you know …" They were caught up. "I dreamt about her last night, Nick."

His eyebrows shot up. "The old woman?"

"It was." In wonder, she touched his face, attempting to wipe away the grimy smudge beneath his unpatched eye. "Your story must have influenced me, but I never had a dream that felt so true. I felt like I'd known her all my life, Nick, like that place is forever and all the rest of this is … is the dream, you know?"

Nodding very slowly, Nick asked, "What happened? Did she speak?"

"She was singing a hymn, something about Gilead and how Jesus died for us. Then she called me and I came to her. Her house was surrounded by corn on all sides and the night sky overhead was crazy vivid. There she sat rocking and she told me … she told me you're a good man, but you're impetuous." Nick's mouth twitched impishly at that and Meg pinched him very lightly. "Just before I woke up, she said to bring the other boy, too. She said God has a place for him. I believe she meant Tom."

Nick scratched his head. I'll be damned, he thought. But he said, "Well, I guess none of us want to be alone. It's only natural. I don't know if I could live with my choice if we left that guy to fend for himself, and your conscience is telling you the same."

Meg agreed with him, but privately she began to wonder if their dreams were more than projections from the sub-conscious. She'd learned just enough introductory psychology to be hooked on the idea of Jungian archetypes. Mother Abagail was just that … but so much more. Outside, another long _Howww-OOO-Gah!_ broke her reverie and announced the passage of Tom Cullen. She went now to the window and saw him riding jauntily on an old boy's Schwinn, a shiny new horn affixed next to a basket on its big old handle bars.

She turned her face up to Nick, who was smiling. He stood on the balls of his feet and rocked in imitation of a proud child. "That was what I spent all morning hunting down. Took a while and some luck to find something he could ride."

Meg gave him an appreciative smile. "Good on you," she said.

"Are you ready to go?"

She had a terrible urge to shout—Aye-aye, captain!—which she suppressed.

Nick glanced back out the window. Tom was running circles around the square. "Looks like he is."

"Well, then, let's go!" She grabbed her brush from the floor and her book from the nightstand, stuffing them both in her bag. She took their Coleman lamp in her other hand and bounded down the hall. Nick turned as he shut the door, briefly looking back at the bed she'd made so neatly. It wasn't really such a bad room. Funny she gave herself to him here, in surroundings so familiar from his old life. He remembered what she said about class systems falling by the way. But she still met me on my own ground, he thought.

* * *

_A horrible darkness was coming out of the west. _It was swelling rapidly. The wind whistled and seethed like a teakettle about to boil over. Meg stumbled, falling to her knees. A grinding, amorphous mouth that seemed to have swallowed every last bit of light ripped out of the sky and disassembled a storage building not too far away with one purposeful switch of its tail. Jesus, she thought. The breath left her body. Then Nick grabbed her hand, but before she could turn from that mesmerizing scene, Tom Cullen was pulling both of them. He herded them into the barn, nearly throwing Nick and pushing her along.

_"Downstairs!" Tom panted. "Quick! Quick! Oh my laws, yes! Tornado! Tornado!"_

"Okay, Tom. Okay!" She looked at Nick and saw his face was slack and gray with terror. All the energy seemed to have been sucked out of the air into that fuming, rampaging thing, making her feel like they were treading in a vacuum. She gripped his hand and he swallowed numbly. She climbed down the stairs after Tom, who seemed to know exactly where to go, with Nick following her. He couldn't hear the devastation being wrought, but his eye was wide as he ducked quickly after them into the cool, damp confines of the cellar. Now it was on them, the air crackled and hummed while the very building above them began to disintegrate in a splintering, crashing cacophony.

_Tom pushed open a heavy wooden door. _Meg nearly choked on the smell wafting out from there; with dawning revulsion, she realized that they were entering a tomb. They came down here to die, she thought, a whole family. And now we're going to join them. Tom was shaking, but he also managed somehow to slam the door just behind Nick, throwing them into the virtual pit of darkness.

She stood numbly in the center of the hay-littered floor, thinking this is what a grave smells like. Nick stood beside her and she grasped his arm, burying her face in his shoulder, trying to fill her senses with the now comforting smell of his sweat instead. Tom was whimpering and she realized that he was clutching Nick's other hand like a frightened child. He can't see or hear now, she thought, remembering the rock opera _Tommy _by The Who. My God, what's that like? She listened to the sounds of the storm above them. In this blackness, it seemed like the very fabric of space and time was being ripped apart. Nick leaned his head closer to hers. She could feel his irregular breathing. Her own heart was hammering like a jackhammer but it had nothing to do with passion at the moment.

"Someone's here," Tom whispered. His voice seemed very far away and Meg had to strain to hear him. But as soon as he'd said it, she was overcome with the terrible knowledge that the crumpled, wasted figures in the corner behind them might just as well be her father and mother and her brother, Jake. _He_ had brought them. _The dark man._ He'd sucked them right out of their coffins and pitched them back down here, far from home. They were going to come to life and drag her back down into the earth with them. Any moment, she would feel Jake's hand, the hand she'd failed to grasp as he rocketed past her in a storm of glass and screeching wheels and scraping metal.

Meg realized that Tom was shivering badly as a dog trying to shake off its bath. "He found—" he started, but Meg shushed him.

"Don't!" she snapped softly, and then shut her mouth so hard on her own tongue it made the desire to scream and never stop almost impossible to withstand. She squeezed Nick's arm harder and he pulled her closer so that she was against his chest. The tension had turned his body into a wire.

Tom whimpered and produced a small, "Oh, my laws," but then he remained quiet.

By this point, Nick was struggling to maintain his sense of reality. It had been only a matter of minutes since they barreled into the cellar, but he was beginning to feel like hours had passed. He was grateful for the girl's touch and smell. Holding her reminded him that his body was still corporeal, that there was matter all around him even if he couldn't see his surroundings or gage distance by hearing. The floor shook beneath them. If he were alone, he might have sunk to that floor in a visceral blob, overcome by the depth of unknown space and inscrutable walls. He held Meg against him and he clutched Tom Cullen's meaty fingers rigidly. Even this touch was reassuring to Nick. He realized that losing contact right then, he would lose his only proof of Tom's existence. Tom would fade into the blackness, becoming as tangible as those shadows which right now threatened to swallow what little composure Nick had left.

Despite all his attempts to rationalize their predicament, he was being reduced to childhood superstition. Even with other human beings on either side of him, he was beginning to suspect that something horrible was sharing the darkness with them. A terrible malign bogeyman that had ridden straight out of that storm was now stalking the corners beyond Nick's frame of reference. The longer he stood unseeing, the more he believed this. Sweat and prickles had broken out on the back of his neck. It was a test he was losing the fight for, to see how long he could sustain control of his greater impulse to break their tidy nesting group and bolt headlong up the stairs, no matter if he'd be carried away in the cyclone or not.

With her head pillowed against Nick's taut chest, Meg ground her knuckles into her eyes until stars split the dark. It was the only way she could stand it. It seemed to her that a great black bird had spread its ominous wings over their shoulders. As in a labyrinth, time had no meaning. She concentrated on the snow she saw slowly congealing into greenish orbs. In her ear, Nick's heart thudded wildly, echoing the throbbing of the storm and the pulse that swam in her eyes. It seemed like this was the space between shadow and light, the visual equivalent of white noise. Memory is such a subjective thing. In one swift motion everything comes to a junction: a car crash, the flash of lightning that is love, the reconfiguration of the world.

Dimly, she was aware as the tumult passed. A sense of weight began to return to her feet as the noise ripping overhead faded to a low roar and then a distant buzz. She thought humorlessly of the Tasmanian Devil in Bugs Bunny cartoons. She knew suddenly and as surely as the plague had changed the terrain of their lives … Something hellish and ageless had been brought from that storm. She could feel its hot iron breath behind her; worse, now that the pandemonium had abated, she could hear a faint rustling. Something was scraping tentatively at the straw in the corner, and she told herself it was only the rats in the barn, but in her mind she saw the figure of Jake rising from that crumpled mass of fetid flesh. His once bright eyes would be sunken and lifeless.

Meg couldn't count how many Halloweens they had dared one another to stay up late through _Night of the Living Dead_ and _Dawn of the Dead_; it seemed like it must have been every year after trick-or-treating since its advent. Meg was never capable of making it through the midnight double feature without interruption. Her hands would shoot reflexively to cover her eyes as tension built. Right around the time the lonely group of protagonists end up bloodily besieged, situation irredeemable, she would run shrieking from the room. Inevitably, her brother would chase her, taking on the slow, hulking, inexorable gait of the zombie hordes. "I'm going to trap you in the basement!" he cried. "Don't go in the attic Meg! There's no way out. There's never a way out!"

Now, she was mortally afraid of the vengeance he would claim, the havoc he would wreak rebirthed from an early grave. "You should have come with me, Meg. Mom and Dad and me, we're all together. They wonder where you are. Don't be a coward, Meghan! The family that slays together stays together, Meghan." In a terrible mime of his best zombie impression, he would drag his lumbering body toward them, dripping filth from every opening. And she knew from her dream what would purposefully congeal from that inky puddle—

It was Tom Cullen who broke the agonizing spell as easily as someone deflating a balloon that is about to burst off a helium tank. "C'mon C'mon, storm's over!" he cried. "We gotta get out-ta here!"

The door was thrown open and Meg blinked, her vision still screwy with red and green flashbulbs in the flood of light. Tom was a crooked shadow bounding haphazardly up the laddered steps. Nick released her and gently pulled her hand. He was in a hurry to be out of there. She followed him numbly and a bit dizzily. She found herself unable to look back down that hole. It was a thing she would always remember, but one she did not want to revisit.

Nick was standing with his hand on his forehead, surveying the damage. Jesus, Meg wondered, how'd it leave our bikes? The ground was a soggy churned mass of mud and debris. The barn they had sheltered in was reduced to a hollow frame. Indeed, it seemed almost as if something had single-mindedly dismantled it board by board in an effort to discover them.

_Tom was weeping. _Nick went over to the other man and put an arm over his shoulder, like a coach trying to buck up a dispirited player, Meg thought.

_"Someone was in there," Tom said_, and Meg saw Nick literally bristle. A light drizzle was still falling, turning the air chill, and she gripped her elbows to keep from shivering. Nick was attempting to reassure Tom—and himself—that was ridiculous. Despite everything, it was interesting to see the two men interact. You would think Tom would disregard Nick most of the time. He couldn't interpret sign language and he couldn't read. With her, Tom remained soft-spoken and a little shy. Instead, Meg noticed he had begun turning to Nick for confirmation about most things. What's more, Nick had a gift for quickly improvising simple signs and expressions that the other man was capable of understanding.

"Just us three," he mimed. "No one else." It was clear that Tom understood, but didn't believe.

_"No,"_ Tom insisted. _"Not just us. Someone else. Someone who came out of the twister."_

Nick shrugged, but she could see a small tic working in his neck. A coldness stole into her heart.

_"Can we go now? Please?"_ Tom looked like a kid who has been cornered on the playground by the school bully and had his lunch money taken, but not before every other kid took turns pointing and laughing.

Nick nodded. In silence, _they trundled their bikes back to the highway, using the path of uprooted grass and torn soil that the tornado made._

Nick caught Meg's arm. "_That guy saved_ our lives._ I never saw a twister in my life before today._" He glanced at Tom pointedly. "_If _we_ left him behind back there in May like I thought about doing,_" he admitted, "we'd _be as dead as doornails right about now._"

Meg nodded slackly. She felt weary and dumb herself.

"_Tell him thanks_," Nick said.

"Tom!" Meg called. He was waiting impatiently on the other side of the tangled mess of guard cable the storm ripped out. Seeing her struggling to get her bike over this, he grabbed it easily from her and carried it to the road. Meg lifted her pace to catch up. "Nick wants to say thank you. I thank you, too. You knew just where to go." Nick caught quickly up _and clapped Tom on the back and smiled at him. _The other man beamed.

"My Daddy always tol' me don't dilly and dally. You see a twister comin' you best get underground right quick. My laws! That's all there is to it."


	5. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

**A/N & disclaimer: Thanks, Stephen King! I have also inserted some quotations of T. S. Eliot from _The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock_. These appear later on without reference but as part of Meg's thoughts which I have placed in italics.**

* * *

_They camped that night in left field of the Rosston Jaycees' Little League ballfield._ By that time, the showers had stopped and the stars were bright in a sky that seemed black and endless. The packs were all wet. Damp sleeping rolls, damp stuff. Meg decided that tomorrow, after they'd dried out, she was going to repack everything in Ziploc baggies. And the next supply outlet they came by, she was looking for a waterproof tarp to wrap stuff in.

Nick built a campfire—regular Boy Scout he is, she thought—and they spread their things near it. The insides of the sleeping bags were at least dry enough to curl up in. Meg watched Tom Cullen stifle a huge yawn after scraping the last of a can of beans into his mouth.

"Laws, Tom is tired," he said. With the fire crackling, it was easier to believe that the enormous maw of the night might somehow be kept at bay. Tom stretched out and closed his eyes and Meg guessed he was soon asleep, his Fisher-Price garage tucked into the corner of his sleeping bag with him.

She sat next to Nick on the other side of the fire. She wanted to talk about their dreams and the shared delusion they seemed to have that something supernatural was in that storm … but she also wanted to forget it. Especially at night; especially before bed.

She tapped his knee with her toe. He'd been gazing into shadows and he swung his head back around to look at her, quirking his eyebrows briefly. He was wearing a long-sleeve black tee-shirt and jeans and he looked very weary but very young. "Thoughts?" she asked. Even she didn't have much energy left for elaboration.

Nick shook his head tiredly, shrugged and tilted his chin to his shoulder. Meg heard a muscle snap which he paid no mind to. She inched closer and reached for his neck. For a split second he flinched, and then he leaned against her side and let her massage a tense spot. He brought his fingers to his temples briefly and after a moment looked into her eyes. The fire flickered over her hair.

"I've been thinking about what you said," he signed, "about there being a surplus of everything and enough for everybody. It's that way now, but it won't be for long. Already all the fresh and frozen stuff is gone. Supermarkets are maggots' nests. Without upkeep and repair, all the houses and the roads will become ruins. We've come all this way and Tom's the first person we came across. You came up from Houston and didn't see anybody …"

Meg stopped his hand gently. "That's not exactly true," she said.

Nick raised his brows.

"I didn't mention it before because it felt unreal. There were still people wandering around the city before I left, but not many, just like a few dregs in the bottom of a teacup." Nick read her lips attentively. She had stopped rubbing his neck and was signing, but he preferred to watch her mouth mold the words; it was how he was used to comprehending others. "I ran into a soldier on the outskirts, when I stopped to outfit my bike. Rather, he found me." She recalled the confrontation for him and her mad flight. The scuffle had lasted only a few minutes but during that time she'd felt like she was underwater and everything was moving in slow motion. Her eyes became distant.

"You got out."

"Yeah. I got out. It wasn't like he was a real person in my mind. I started thinking of him crazily like some character in a movie. I don't know if I killed him like you did that man. He was still alive when I ran away."

Nick regarded her with a different sort of approval. She was tougher than he'd thought. He realized this was something else that came as a prerequisite for survival in the world they'd been thrown into. Spunky, yeah, that was one thing. But she'd disarmed a soldier with a semi-automatic weapon. Wounded or not, that was something. There were plenty of people who would have surrendered mindlessly. Authority hath its charms, even if the very system upholding it has crumbled.

"We'll have to learn how," she said, startling him out of a reverie. He tapped the side of her chin so that he could see what he'd missed. "The food, and in time everything else. We'll have to learn how to hunt or grow or make things for ourselves." Nick thought about the deer. Some people are already getting that. "Almost like pioneers," she mused. The fire had burned down to embers. He watched shadows flicker over her jaw, her dark eyes. "That's the word. Is it pretentious, Nick? New pioneers?"

He shook his head. Are we? If we are, then fate sure threw a motley crew into the pot. He wondered who would appear on their horizon next. He drew her into his arms, kissed her gently, and then pulled her down beside him. They lay in separate sleeping rolls side by side under the vaulting Midwestern sky. Before falling asleep, Nick pictured Tom Cullen's words already a world away in the bright sunlight. _Sure. That bike is yours. That Texaco garage is mine. _And she's your girl, too, right? Yeah, Nick thought, drifting away with the smell of fresh earth and charred wood. _Sleep came quickly and_ that night _it was dreamless._

* * *

That morning, July 7, Nick _bent over the atlas_ and plotted their route.

"I doubt we'll _actually find an old Negro woman_ anything like in these dreams," he said, moving his hand over the map. Meg cocked her head. She was trying to boil water for instant coffee on the coals of the fire. The best she could get was a lukewarm mess that wouldn't dissolve her creamer. "_I don't believe in precognition or in visions_," Nick continued, a bit defensively.

"I didn't say it was either one," she said.

He gave this a grudging assent with a tip of his chin. "No, you didn't," he admitted. "It's America that's gone. And I don't know what all this emptiness is." He raised his arms to indicate the expanse, and then dropped them limply. She didn't know what he'd been thinking to get him so agitated, but she hoped it would soon pass.

* * *

By afternoon, the three of them approached the sign for Woods County. Tom had to stop and ponder this. It was with hesitation that he accepted leaving behind not only his familiar places, but his father's admonitions not to venture too far.

_"Are we going into the world?"_ he asked Nick. Then, more gravely, _"Is Woods the word for world?"_ A foul shiver trickled down her spine as Nick nodded slowly.

_Out of the blue and into the black_, she thought. There was her mom, up late nights at the kitchen table grading papers, _Rust Never Sleeps_ playing low on the turntable in the dining room. She thought of her dad weekends, a liter of Southern Comfort tucked neatly between his knees on the couch. But what happens in these fairy tales once Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood make their way out of the blue and into the black? The everyday takes on absurd shapes; nothing is predictable anymore except change. Transformation.

The shadow of a crow flitted overhead as they rolled smoothly past the invisible boundary. Neither of the men seemed to notice.

* * *

Meg was having a hard time getting used to how incredibly vast and flat the prairies were. They rode and rode with farm and grassland stretching into the distance, but after miles the road seemed uniformly the same, like they were moving on a treadmill instead of forward. It was godawful exhausting; that was what it was.

They were in Kansas by dark. Meg tapped Nick's arm. "Isn't the geographic center of the US in Kansas?" she wondered, tiredly.

"It is," Nick nodded. "It's near Lebanon to be exact. We'll be passing it."

"You've been studying that atlas like it's a battle plan."

Nick was afraid to tell her what he'd been thinking about that. He was afraid he was going crazy. It was like they'd gone through a time warp or something. They'd crossed almost the entire state of Oklahoma in one day and he swore he couldn't remember passing through or even around any of the towns on those maps.

She startled him by echoing his own unease. "How the hell did we get through Oklahoma so fast?"

Nick shook his head, thinking of the heat shimmers off the pavement and the monotonous road. It was easy to become hypnotized. Or lost. Just roll on past the right junction. But there they were …

Tom interrupted this silent conversation to complain stridently. "I sure do miss tv. Laws yes, time was you could eat a good supper and head on into the tv room to catch a couple funny shows. No more tv and Tom's bored. I don't wanna ride no more. Laws no, we're too far from home. That seat makes my bum hurt. I like my garage though." This was a familiar refrain and one he had been repeating for the last couple hours.

Nick gestured toward the spidery frame of a water tower up ahead. "We're camping there," he said.

"Alright, Mr. Boss Man," she said, and out loud, "Tom, Nick says we're camping for the night up there. The water tower is shelter enough."

Tom grumbled quietly to himself. But he _was asleep as soon as he crawled into his sleeping bag._ They _sat awhile, watching the stars come out._ No campfire that night. Meg missed the comforting light and warmth. _The land was utterly dark, and for _Nick_, utterly still._ They had come to a wordless agreement not to make love again until they had complete privacy. Tom was a sound sleeper, but neither of them wanted to gamble on that. There were small intimate actions. Meg lay out her sleeping bag and stretched out with her head pillowed against his left thigh. Even now, she was still careful of the mostly-healed gash on his right. Nick combed his fingers through her hair absently.

She was almost asleep when she felt him tense and lean away, searching in the dark for something with his hand. When she looked up, he was brandishing a large dirt-clod, which he let fly into the night. She heard a caw and the soft flurry of wings as another crow took flight. Carrion birds, she thought, her eyelids fluttering again. She nestled closer against his side.

* * *

The buffalo were coming back. Tom was awed and afraid of the lumbering monsters with their big shaggy heads. _"What are they? __Those ain't cows!"_

"They're bison," Meg said. "They used to roam this whole land before the white settlers came."

"Uh," Tom said. This was only a sparse herd, nothing like the droves that once moved together as small seas across the undulating prairies. The buffalo looked to have already toppled some sturdy fencing. Now they were casually milling about, oblivious to three sweaty, sun-burnt humans on bicycles, watching the beasts trundle through their road in Comanche County.

Nick hooked his elbows over his handlebars and leaned forward, absolutely dumbfounded. You can take that to the bank, he thought.

Meg wasn't aware of it, but her great-great grandfather married a Comanche woman whose name was unpronounceable in English and was known thereafter only as Inez O'Malley, after whom the I-O Ranch was named. If she'd inherited anything from that somber woman, it was her dark almond-shaped eyes. She rolled up to Nick and tapped his wrist. She gestured benevolently. "It's their country again."

"All in good time," he signed. And thought, maybe the superflu will give us this too. The end of class but also the end of race, because where are the natives now? If there were any left, or any African Americans or Japanese Americans, then they would very soon be completely assimilated. At last the melting pot would be complete fondue. As long as there was a prodigious population, there were still chunks, pockets here and there of diverse heritage. But with a scattered bunch like this, race and religion weren't going to matter. Or were they? "New pioneers, indeed," he said. He thought, we'll all be mongrels. And in a few generations, who knows, maybe our grandchildren will be racing across these prairies on bare horseback—if there are any horses left—in search of spearing one of those behemoths.

_That day was July 8, 1990, and they slept that night in flat open farm country forty miles west of Deerhead._

* * *

Meg watched Tom maneuver his cars in and out of the toy garage. He was eating little tinned sausages and singing a song that had hit the charts just before the plague hit. She was surprised that he managed the right pitch. In most ways, Tom looked and acted childish, but he had a fine singing voice. She'd decided that none of the standard terms really fit Tom. He was neither feeble nor simple nor retarded and yet he was all these things. She thought a better way of describing him was stunted, and yet that didn't say enough. Perhaps, in the end, he was not merely delayed but time-locked. At some point in Tom's childhood, a door had closed. Meg thought it must be a nice room Tom had in there, one decorated in bright colors and balloons and friendly animals. There was, of course, still a closet for monsters to hide, a bed beneath which the bogeyman might be found. Tom had a healthy horror of both. His mother and father were still strong presences in that room. Meg suspected that Tom's many exclamations of _My laws!_ had been picked up reactively from his mother, who must also have coached young Tom to spell M-O-O-N, perhaps while reading the standard children's bedtime book.

There was a window in Tom's room which gave on a vista of the world outside. Meg suspected that it was here where Tom became stuck, gazing from the window in his mind when he was trying to hook on a particularly complicated idea. He had done this several times since they found him. Nick thought it was a form of self-hypnotism and it might very well be.

Nick was in a funk. They'd stopped for lunch in front of the burned-out shell of a farmhouse. The elm in the front yard was slightly sooty but otherwise unaffected. Sunlight wafted down through its leaves, casting a jade sheen which danced over them in its circle. He studied the atlas for a bit, fidgeting the pages back and forth, but he had the routes memorized by now. He took to ripping leaves slowly down their spines and fluttering the pieces.

Meg leaned over and blew some of them away. "Care to illuminate me as to what put you in such a blue study?"

He gestured toward the road. "No cars. If we had a car, this—" he rustled the atlas at his side "—would be no problem."

Meg slumped a little. "I wish I'd learned to drive, now."

Nick shook his head. "I wasn't trying to make you feel bad." He patted her arm. "I just _never realized how easy it was to stick out your thumb, knowing that sooner or later the law of averages was going to favor you._"

"Wasn't hitchhiking dangerous?"

Nick shook his head. "You get to know the perverts pretty quickly."

She cast her eyes down, realizing he wasn't going to elaborate. She suddenly realized just how sheltered her own childhood was. No matter how many people she'd lost, she had always been safe. She'd never had to worry about where she was going to rest her head at night or get her next meal from. And even after her mother and Jake were gone, her aunt and Ben had still been there to give her hugs and coach her on her homework and take her to the movies. She'd never wanted for anything. She'd never had to defend herself until that soldier stumbled on her.

The only way she could relate to that part of his life was through books. The corner of her mouth quirked up. "_I've been searchin' for a Heart of Gold_," she said, "preferably one free of mice."

"Douglas Adams?"

"Courtesy of Neil Young, one of my Mom's favorites. Funny. Counter-culture books tend to be linked to music thematically. I also loved _Even Cowgirls Get the Blues_, and I think that was originally an Emmylou Harris tune."

"I don't know that one."

Meg smiled. "Sissy Hankshaw, hitchhiker extraordinaire." She waggled her own slim digits in the air. "Born with a mammoth set of thumbs she turned to her advantage."

"Beep beep." Tom drove a small black truck in to his service center. He was oblivious to their conversation, which had taken place silently. Sometimes he regarded the wagging of their hands curiously, but most of the time he ignored it completely. It was something he couldn't grasp and it usually didn't affect him. "Beep beep. Hurry it up. We got places to go. You betcha."

Meg leaned back with her legs stretched out, balancing her weight on the palms of her hands. She stared up into the sea of green lapping over them. Her red ponytail spilled behind her, touching the ground. Her breasts arched nicely beneath the madras shirt she was wearing. She closed her eyes but snapped them open when Nick traced a leaf down the bridge of her nose and over her lips. He dropped it on her flat stomach, just above the band of her white shorts. "That's another thing," he signed. "I want to be alone with you."

She gazed into his eyes, one shaded by black, one clear and gray as shale. She sat up so she could sign. "We could stop. Just for a night. Find an empty house or a little motel like back in May, so Tom could have his own room."

Nick nodded. They'd been on the road for three days straight and the ground was hard at night.

* * *

That was easier said than done. They were literally in the middle of nowhere. Every few hours they passed a cluster of clapboard houses on some shabby one light street that passed for a town. And it was flat scrub country in between.

Just as dusk was setting on the land they found a work office trailer situated off from a cropping of wind turbines. Since dinner, eaten briskly from cans on the side of the road, Tom had been plaintively bewailing what he considered an unfairly long day. Nick coasted his bike to a stop and held his palm up in a stay gesture to both Tom and Meg. They straddled their bikes in the purple light as he walked over the wide dirt drive. Many trucks must have driven up here, he thought. But there were none now. He was scenting the air. He didn't smell it, so far. The odor of corruption, of rancid flesh hung thickly over many houses, but not around here. The doors were unlocked, either left open for workers coming and going or just forgotten. In this country, who needed locks? He flicked on the flashlight he pulled from his pack.

Inside it was about what you'd expect. The thin felt-like carpet must once have been slate blue, but had been worn black in most places from heavy tread. The walls were all wood-paneled. One long counter in dark, slightly warped wood took up part of the back wall, with coffee paraphernalia laid out and a dead microwave in the corner. There was a card table and a few odd chairs. There were chests of tool drawers lined up and a number of greasy wrenches and pieces of machinery and bits of wire strewn here and there. Against one wall there was a lumpy, oil-stained sofa in some scratchy brown plaid fabric that must be at least fifteen years old. That would do Tom, Nick thought. Beyond the sofa there was a narrow, crooked hall leading back, and Nick found what he thought he would. There was a tiny bathroom, the hollow veneered door of which faced a small square window in the back wall. The scuffy linoleum floor was cracked and uneven. Another cardboardy door met the two walls. Beyond, he found what was probably a foreman's office. There was a long desk made by setting plywood up on filing cabinets against the end wall, over which a row of crank windows opened. No curtains. No touches of home. But there was another couch, this one a little newer and less grungy than the one in the bigger room. It was a gold that reminded Nick of manila envelopes. The plush was worn a little thin on the arms, but it didn't smell bad. He pulled the cushions off and sure enough, there was a pull-out bed. There was just room to unfold it in the little space. Not great, but no bugs and no stains. No linens either. Fine. They had their sleeping bags.

He went back outside and waved them in. Tom came sulkily and Meg a bit apprehensively. She held her elbows with her arms crossed across her breasts as she looked around the dark interior. Tom dragged his feet to the plaid couch, dropped his garage on one seat, and collapsed heavily beside it. He was soon snoring.

"It's safe here," Nick told her. "It's dirty, but it's not disgusting."

"Really?" she said. Her mouth quirked and her eyes narrowed and he nearly blushed, realizing the innuendo. He shook his head, his heart pounding.

Meg shrugged her pack off. Her mind was jumping all over. _And indeed there will be time_ … She wondered why she felt so empty. She said: "Can I have that flashlight?" Nick handed it to her. He was already setting out the lantern. She went on through the tight corridor to the back of the trailer, the flashlight throwing a sickly yellow glow on everything. She looked at the bare and lumpy mattress. Inwardly, she sighed. She had a sudden picture of the slimeball in _Dirty Dancing_— _"You slummin, Baby?"_ – yeah, yeah, I am. Mentally, she dumped a water pitcher down the prick's trousers and squared herself. Time for this, she thought, for you and me. _Time for all the works and days of hands_ that _murder_ _and create_ … Why, oh why was she so cold?

Nick came up behind her and touched her shoulder and she jumped. Comically, she dropped the flashlight and then leaned down to retrieve it and managed to bump her head on the bowed piece of plywood propped up on filing cabinets. "Ouch!" she said, finally sitting down on the end of the bed to rub the spot over her right temple. "That was ridiculous."

Nick was trying to restrain himself from grinning. He threw the sleeping rolls he was carrying on the bed beside her. And then his hands were on her, the way he wanted them to be.

Meg kissed him, hungrily tasting his jaw and neck. She pushed his sleeve up just enough to plant her mouth on his shoulder, feeling the wiriness of his arms. All still new, she thought. The gentle spell of love was slowly binding her. _In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse._

Nick kicked the flimsy door behind him shut. And he loved her. With the gentleness and sometimes awkwardness of lovers newly discovering each other, he found her in the dark. The flashlight rolled onto a corner of the board beside them, forgotten but for the shallow ring of light it provided. He slipped off his shirt and her lips covered his chest. She uncannily found scars that had been healing and like a mother she kissed every single one. Nick drew in his breath.

Sweat and grime didn't matter anymore. It wasn't really that bad anyway. She carried isopropyl alcohol and wet wipes in her pack, along with a bottle of Love's Baby Soft, and that was what she smelled like.

* * *

**A/N: ****If I've gotten any readers, you may notice that I've gone back and changed Nick's eye color several times. I'm really just trying to get what seems right. A little while ago, I thought he should appear similar to a young Martin Sheen in _Badlands_, but with black hair. That characterization seems to gel with the concept art in the Marvel graphic novelization. Right now (& I've thought it before) I'm convinced he'd be a dead-ringer for Billie Joe Armstrong (minus the punk make-up and spiky hair). If _The Stand_ is remade into a feature film, I hope they choose a talented, dark-complexioned actor for the role. Somebody along the lines of Joseph Gordon-Levitt. With all apologies to fans of the miniseries, I really hated Rob Lowe, but that had more to do with his patronizing aura of smarminess and the privileged arrogance he reeks ... the exact opposite of Nick's character.**


	6. You Really Got Me

**Arrgh! This chapter was freaking hard to write! I am resorting more and more to interweaving King's sentences—the ones I feel are either truly beautiful or signatory to the scene—but I try to keep this at a minimum and you will tell King's work from mine by the italics. Anyway, I have labored to keep Julie within character, which is a bit difficult, as King didn't really give us much material. Where I add, I'm following logically (I think). Quite a few things are going to be changing from canon as this swerves further into AU territory. Thanks and please R+R!**

* * *

Bad apples. That was the problem. _They found them growing on_ a knotty _old tree in a farmyard, green and small and sour_. Meg tried one and found herself hating it. She chewed gingerly and then set it aside. Nick ate a couple, but Tom began gobbling _one after the other, right down to the_ir_ cores._ And so they had this problem. From late morning onward, Tom was pitifully sick. In the heat of the day, his insides twisted round the bitter unripe fruit. He had to keep racing to the clumps of tall grass or bushes. He became dehydrated, he was weak, and he was unable to ride for longer than a couple minutes at a stretch. So they walked along, pacing their bikes to Tom's staggering, wincing gait. Tom and Nick had stripped their shirts off in the heat. Sweat coursed off both of them, but Tom was drenched. Meg's shirt stuck to her back under the unrelenting sun and her thighs felt raw. It was obvious they had to stop soon.

As the grueling afternoon wore towards evening, they hit the largest town they'd seen in days. Pratt wasn't much to speak of, but it was bigger than most of the one-horse places they'd passed through in this country. They trundled down Main St. and found a bench for Tom to rest beneath a shade tree. He snoozed fretfully.

"I guess we're staying here for the night?" Meg said, hopefully.

Nick nodded. He was scanning the signs up the street. "I'm going to get _some Pepto-Bismol to_ _cork him up_. I _want to make some time tomorrow_."

For the first time, Meg wondered if this journey's end was worth its trouble. "What's the rush? If you don't actually believe …" But he was already walking away, her words lost. She sighed, sitting down by Tom's feet. Once in a while, his leg twitched like a dreaming dog's.

With the afternoon buzzing fetidly in her head, and the heat cloying her nostrils, she was beginning to doze herself when she wondered what was taking him so long. What was it, fifteen minutes? Ten? She stood up, irritated, and paced a bit. She decided to follow him. The drugstore was just a few doors down. She didn't know why she felt suddenly obtrusive. He hadn't told her to stay back, and nothing between them should make her assume that he didn't want her company. It just felt weird. She had to admit that. The vibe was off.

She opened the Rexall's door and a little strand of jingle bells above it tinkled. At the same moment, there was a frustrated screech which turned into a loud and obsequious, "Oh, hi-yah! You must be Meghan. I'm Julie Lawry." The girl came bouncing down an aisle. Her light brown hair trailed wispily from the gypsy scarf it was knotted in. Other than that, she certainly wasn't wearing much, Meg noted, thinking all the while: Good Lord, it's Daisy Duke … of course, she's a lot smaller than Daisy Duke. She looked like she was still in junior high. _There was a rash of pimples on her forehead_. Her eyes were large and a little unsettling.

The girl's hands were already clasping Meg's arms, who felt like a limp fish. Across the store, her eyes met Nick's. He looked troubled and a little stunned, which mirrored her state of mind. His hands were stuffed deep in his pockets.

"Nicky here already told me all about you," said Julie, with a glittering smile. She's wearing frosted lipstick, Meg thought. And sparkly blue eye shadow and about a ton of perfume. Like she was playing dress up before he found her. "Well, he couldn't really tell me, but he wrote it out, you know?"

"I know," said Meg. Nick was now walking over to them. He held her eyes in his gaze, his jaw tense.

"I'm going to come with you guys! It's so good to see somebody again. I don't even care who it is. We're going to be good friends, I can tell!"

Behind her, Nick quietly signed, "I'm not so sure about this."

Meg smiled politely and shook the other girl's hand, hoping to shake her off. Julie's paws on her felt kind of clammy. "Sure we'll be friends."

"I just know we will," Julie said. But her eyes were narrowed.

* * *

It looked as if the Pratt theater would be playing a double feature of _Teenage_ _Mutant Ninja Turtles_ and _Back to the Future III_ for perpetuity. They walked back outside and sat down under the marquee, a little ways apart from Tom, whose lights were still out. The two girls leaned against the brick of the building and drank warm Cokes from the drugstore. Julie seemed quite comfortable loitering there. It was her turf. Nick sat cross-legged on the pavement somewhat separately. A bottle of Pepto-Bismol stood neatly beside him for when Tom woke up. He badly wanted a beer but thought drinking it warm would make him sick.

Julie talked incessantly without ever really managing to say very much. She babbled pleasantly about her boyfriend—who her parents hated and who finally got _so pissed off at the "establishment system" running the local high school that he had quit to join the Marines last April_. She reminisced about her high-school chums and the many concerts she went to in Wichita. She enjoyed getting lit and talked about how easy it was to come by _what she called "Colombian short rounds" and "fry-daddies."_

"You wouldn't think it would be in a town like Pratt!" she continued. "But you'd be surprised." Meg looked momentarily baffled until she realized those were both euphemisms for joints, but she still thought she was missing something. Nick looked at her in commiseration.

"Can you dig heavy metal?" Julie asked Meg, her eyes alight.

Meg shook her head. "I don't know. There are a few songs, probably. You can't really avoid Mtv, can you? Some of it's okay." She actually preferred the mellow rock her parents had loved, but she wanted to make an effort to relate to the other girl. "Def Leppard annoys the hell out of me, but I like the standard Poison songs and Bon Jovi's alright. So's GnR or Metallica in small doses. I really liked Lita Ford too, even though it upset me when the boyfriend in that one video goes to nuke the cat."

Julie was beaming. "Right, huh?! Ruthie and Mary Beth and me, we hitched all the way up to Kansas City to see the Monsters of Rock on tour." Her eyes skittered across Nick, who was oblivious to most of these references. Most music videos were lip-synched but tended to be unreadable because of the heavy amount of jumping around and camera shifts. Of course, the radio was totally inaccessible to him. He recognized music only as a form of vibration. The lyrics he knew were those that made it into common use or were published in books. If anybody had asked him, he might have said he admired Paul Simon and thought Bob Dylan was a genius. But nobody ever asked him.

Julie continued her spiel. "It was only _the most bitchin' groovy experience of my life_! I even got to go backstage. Party hearty, right! The bassist for Dokken was all over me and I was like, this is the best. Forget about Ronnie. This is once in a lifetime. I swear we ended up making it right there!"

Meg raised her eyebrows skeptically. "I don't really know who he is. I saw Bon Jovi a couple years ago with my aunt, but she drank too much beer and so many guys had their girlfriends up on their shoulders I couldn't really see anything." That was around the time Myra had hoped her niece would start getting out and accept an invitation to junior prom. She'd also taken her to a Bangles concert in a darkened auditorium, which Meg liked much better. "Didn't Dokken do the theme song for _Nightmare on Elm Street 3_?"

"Yeah, they did. _Dream Warriors_. Weird, huh?" Her wide blue eyes hovered back to Nick. She liked him to follow her lips. Julie very much wanted all the attention on her. But Nick's eyes were on Tom, who had shifted momentarily but still not awakened.

Meg wanted to know about her family. How many were there? Did she have brothers or sisters? Julie shook her head. Her floppy scarf shook with her. "I was an only child. Before that whole thing with Ronnie—Ronnie was my boyfriend—I had my Daddy wrapped around my pinky. My Mama _always called _me her Angel-Face_, 'cause I look so young_, but also 'cause she said I'm so pretty I'd just like to be an angel_._"

"How old are you?"

"I'm seventeen." Julie batted her lashes prettily.

"Have you gotten your license?" Nick leaned forward at this. If she could drive, that might solve all their problems.

Julie was bobbing her head, still batting her lashes.

Meg looked back and forth between them. Nick was smiling, but not at the girl's coquettishness. It was at the idea of deliverance from the long trail they were cutting across the country. "I'd like to see your house," she said to Julie. "Did your parents have a car you could drive?"

Julie's eyes, which had been slitted in pleasure, opened wide again. "Umm, no." She fiddled with the fringe on her shorts. "Actually, I haven't been staying at home. I've been sleeping in some of the buildings downtown here. Most of the nights I can't sleep at all," she admitted. "It's too _spooky here_. Sometimes I sleep in Ronnie's van. He left it in his parents' driveway when he enlisted."

"Oh! That would work, if you've got the keys."

She bit her lip and adjusted her ponytail, not looking at Meg or Nick. "Well, I don't have them, you see. He just left it, you know. I don't know where the keys are."

"Well, they're probably in his parents' house." Meg was exasperated with the girl, but her voice was very quiet.

Julie fidgeted again on the hot pavement. With her knees drawn up, it was pretty obvious that she wasn't wearing underwear. Meg noticed this as Nick noticed and then averted his eyes.

"Yeah. Yeah, right," Julie said in a snippy tone she hoped would be read as dismissal. Meg was becoming more and more sure each minute that Nick was right. This was a terrible idea. She didn't know what had gone on between them before she walked in, but she had a pretty good guess. She trusted Nick. She didn't think he would willingly hurt her. For that reason, she wasn't going to question him. It was written all over, plain as day. Julie flaunted her sex in a casual, obliquely nasty way that men were taught to find appealing. That alone was not disturbing. But Julie wasn't just sexy in a skeezy little teeny bopper way, she was pathological. Meg was sure she was lying. She wasn't seventeen and she didn't drive. Maybe her Mama had called her Angel-Face, but Meg was having a terrible time piecing the truth out of her lies.

"Well …" Meg tried to think how to change the subject. "Maybe we should go to your house tonight. It won't be so spooky with other people."

Julie's response was surprisingly immediate and vicious. "No! We can't go to my house! I mean—" she smiled again, her ire forgotten just as suddenly as it seethed "—my parents died there. That's pretty hard to get over."

Meg took this at face value, although Nick regarded Julie more closely. She still hadn't shown one genuine sign of true grief.

"I'm sorry for that," Meg said quietly. "We've all lost someone. If you talk about it, if you talk about them, it gets easier. Like what they did for a living? Or little things you remember …"

Julie's eyes flashed menacingly. "What is it with you and all the questions, huh? I mean, what is this, the Inquisition or somethin'?!"

Meg looked to Nick, astonished. "I'm sorry," she said, turning back to Julie, but Julie had stood up in a quick and disconcerting way. They rose hastily. In some ways, she was drawn to help the younger girl, but she was wondering if it was even worth the trouble.

_"Hey, your friend's waking up!"_

He was, at that. Tom _was now sitting on the park bench, scratching his crow's nest hair and goggling around pallidly._

_"Hi, y'all!" Julie trilled, and ran down the street toward Tom, her breasts bouncing sweetly under her tight middy top. Tom's goggle had been big to begin with; now it grew bigger still."_

Meg followed her, warily. Nick grabbed the bottle of Pepto-Bismol. He had a lurching feeling inside.

* * *

Meg couldn't believe this. "Tom, it's not poison. Why would Nick feed you poison? It's medicine to help you feel better."

Tom looked at her doubtfully and then back at Nick with fear. Nick's brows were drawn together alarmingly. Meg could see he was ready to snap right before her eyes. They had been through so much in so little time, and he was shouldering that burden. Whatever carefully constructed unit of control he maintained, Julie Lawry had succeeded in knocking posts out from underneath it, and with that his resolve went to hell. He turned toward the girl—who was snickering smugly—with his hand raised.

And that was when she stepped between them. Nick raised his brows and glared at her, but his hand dropped limply at his side. He shook his head numbly, but it was too late. Tom was watching all this with the expression of a child who has been called to the principal's office for a crime he didn't commit.

Meg turned toward Julie, feeling very ragged. "I don't know what you're trying to do, but this is not the same world we were living in."

Julie's eyes were flashing with spite. "What is that?" she said. "Words of wisdom from l'il miss sunshine? I don't know any of you! I know that dummy was gonna hit me. If you think you can push me around and I'll shrink down in a corner and forget about it, you got something else coming!"

Meg felt the pressure in her temples whamming in and out. "Nobody wants that, Julie. We're all at a commodity right now …"

"What the hell does that fucking mean?!" Julie's hands were on her hips and her voice had a hysterical edge. Meg didn't really know what she meant; it had just sounded like something smart to say.

Nick, in the mean time, had actually managed to get Tom to drink a lid full of the pink stuff. Tom gagged on it, but choked it down. He looked hopefully at Meghan, but Meg was now concentrated on the ratty-looking girl in front of her.

Nick irritably ripped the pad from his back pocket and scribbled a note. _He tore_ the page _off and held it out to_ Julie. Julie turned away, _batting at_ his note. It landed face up on the pavement and Meg saw the words: _We don't need you._ He'd written them boldly and underlined it twice. She held her breath in deeply, but she bent over and picked up the note and handed it back to him. "Don't," she said softly, shaking her head at him.

Nick looked at her wildly, then back at Julie. He threw his hands up in the air.

"What?! What's going on?" said Julie, looking between them.

Nick handed her the note, his jaw hardened. This time she took it and read it. Her head began shaking. _"_Oh no, _I'm not staying here," Julie Lawry said. _Her sharp little chin had a determined set, but her eyes were wide as saucers._ "I'm coming. And you can't stop me."_

Dully, Meg wondered if it was a shallow need to win and gloat at all costs, or something deeper fueling Julie's obstinate stance, a true need for some respite from the awful loneliness. She thought of the nightmares and shivered, thinking: she's been alone too long—she's going mad.

Nick, shaking his head, had stuffed his hands back in his pockets. He paced roughly back toward their bikes, removing himself from the argument.

Meg held her hands out in front of her; for a moment, it looked like she was waiting to be handcuffed. "Just wait right here. You can come with us! I'll talk to him. We won't leave you behind, I swear." It was, perhaps, the only right thing she could say.

Meg came up behind Nick. He was rummaging through the pack strapped to the back of his bike, and when she came up beside him he actually jumped. She was looking over his shoulder and what she saw sent a wave of nausea through her. He was unwrapping a holster and gun that was buried in the bottom of his knapsack in a towel.

Meg grabbed his arm, her mouth an O. "What do you think you're doing?" she signed, feeling more and more frantic. "What is that for?!" He looked into her eyes with a terrible desperate determination.

Nick paused. In truth he didn't know. He had thought of the gun, which even Meghan was unaware of, so far as he knew. He didn't have to allow Julie Lawry into their world. It was just fine without her. How they would deal with her, he was unsure. He only knew it would complicate matters incredibly. And, if truth be told, Julie frightened him a little, but his own reaction to her frightened him more. Nick stuffed the bundle back into his pack. He shook his head. Finally, he glanced back at Julie and signed, "I don't know." He couldn't find the words. "Something's not right about her."

Something's not right about you, either, she thought. It was Ben who took her to the mall when she was younger and showed her the way guys checked out the women walking by. "They become objects," he said. "Until he knows you, that's all you are to a man. There are good guys, but even good guys are going to see you as an object before they see what's inside." It was easy for them to have a completely clandestine conversation in the midst of a crowd. He'd point out when there was someone looking at her, too. After awhile, she became adept at noticing; she would even see where his eyes strayed, noting the types he lingered on. What was going on here wasn't so different. It hurt more seeing it from someone she cared about.

Meghan bit her lip as she signed. Julie watched them from the shadow of a doorway. She was trying to look huffy leaning against the wall biting her nails and failed to appear anything but pathetic. Meg thought vaguely that Travis Bickle would probably feel right at home taking her out for toast. The thought gave her the creeps. "Maybe that's right. But who's to judge? Are you?"

Nick shook his head. "Do you want her with us? Why are you coming in on her side?"

Meg sighed. "There aren't any sides. This can't go any further. I don't know why you still have that—" she gestured disgustedly at his pack "—but it's not going to help!" She looked back at Julie, who was watching them intently. "Look at her! She's just a kid—" Nick winced, it wasn't far off from what he'd thought just a little while ago "—so if she's a goddamn stupid kid, she's a survivor. That's all we can hope to find."

Tom was still regarding them blankly. His eyes toured from Nick, to her, to Julie and back again. Meg was shaking her head. She felt hollow inside, like something had been taken from her. She reached for his arm again and he pulled momentarily away. "Just ask her to apologize to Tom," she pleaded. "It was a stupid prank, Nick."

It was at that. He had no more explanation for Meg's defense of Julie than he did for his feeling of obligation to Tom Cullen. His shoulders slumped.

"Tell her you're sorry," Meg said. Her eyes were lambent. He threw his head up and rolled his eyes, but he nodded, gathering himself stoically. He didn't know what kind of troop they'd make, such a ragtag group of misfits stumbling together. He felt something solid had been thrown up, like a door between what now struck him as a time of blissful ignorance, and the future, as uncertain and volatile as a box of wet gunpowder. Who knew, once dried out, if it would still light or not? He only knew it wasn't smart to throw matches at it.

* * *

**A/N: I have always wondered at Nick's immediate reversion to the gun which he's still keeping on his hip, despite having shot himself. Not to mention how uncomfortable it must be to bike long distances in the July sun with a leather holster around your waist. You'd think he might have started keeping it somewhere else, especially as more time passed without meeting anybody besides Tom. I'm just going with my gut feeling here and assuming that any excuse—such as Meg's obvious distaste for guns—would be enough to make him stow it somewhere more surreptitious. Or maybe having someone besides Tom to rely on and actually talk to made him a little less vigilant. Anyway, in my AU he had the gun packed tightly away, thereby narrowly avoiding a potentially fatal crossfire with Julie.**

**Anybody else think that was a weird over-reaction to begin with? Not sure where Stephen King was coming from when he committed it to paper in the first place; maybe one too many encounters with rabid stoner chicks during his post-fame in the '70's? Even given everything Nick's been through, slapping, harshly rejecting, then pulling a gun for emphasis on a teenage girl (even a disturbed one) right after having sex with her … just not good guy stuff, right? All because she frustrated him by scaring Tom off the Pepto-Bismol. Surely there were other ways out of that incident, you think? Just about anybody intervening would have called ridiculous on both parts. I don't know how legit my take is, but I'm pushing forward anyhow.**


	7. The End of the Innocence

**A/N: Down below, you'll find verse 7 at the beginning of most pre-1990 editions. For some reason, it's not in my Uncut. Considering all things archetypal (that great Jungian sea of collective unconscious that drifts through all dimensions), it's just as relevant. In fact, I think music gets to the heart of these dark stories, why they bind us, why they move us. So thanks to Bob Dylan, for reprinting his lyrics:**

_'Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood  
When blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud  
I come in from the wilderness, a creature void of form  
"Come in," she said, "I'll give ya  
Shelter from the storm."_

_If I pass this way again, you can rest assured  
I'll always do my best for her, on that I give my word  
In a world of steel-eyed death, and men who are fighting to be warm  
"Come in," she said, "I'll give ya  
Shelter from the storm."_

_Not a word was spoke between us, there was no risk involved  
Nothing up to that point had even been resolved  
Try imagining a place where it's always safe and warm  
"Come in," she said, "I'll give ya  
Shelter from the storm."_

_I was burned out from exhaustion, buried in the hail  
Poisoned in the bushes an' blown out on the trail  
Hunted like a crocodile, ravaged in the corn  
"Come in," she said, "I'll give ya  
Shelter from the storm."_

_Suddenly I turned around and she was standin' there  
With silver bracelets on her wrists and flowers in her hair  
She walked up to me so gracefully and took my crown of thorns  
"Come in" she said, "I'll give ya  
Shelter from the storm."_

_Now the bonds are broken but they can be retied  
Ah, one more journey to the woods, the holes where spirits hide  
It's a never ending battle, for a peace that's always torn  
"Come in," she said, "I'll give ya  
Shelter from the storm."_

_Well, the deputy walks on hard nails and the preacher rides a mount  
But nothing really matters much, it's doom alone that counts  
And the one-eyed undertaker, he blows a futile horn  
"Come in," she said, "I'll give ya  
Shelter from the storm."_

_Well I've heard newborn babies cryin' like a mournin' dove  
And old men with broken teeth stranded without love  
Do I understand your question, man, is it hopeless and forlorn?  
"Come in," she said, "I'll give ya  
Shelter from the storm."_

_And now there's a wall between us, somethin' there's been lost  
I took too much for granted, I got my signals crossed  
And just to think it all began on an uneventful morn  
"Come in," she said, "I'll give ya  
Shelter from the storm."_

_In a little hilltop village, they gambled for my clothes  
I bargained for salvation an' she gave me a lethal dose  
I offered up my innocence and got repaid with scorn  
"Come in," she said, "I'll give ya  
Shelter from the storm."_

_Well, I'm livin' in a foreign country but I'm bound to cross the line  
Beauty walks on a razor's edge, someday I'll make it mine  
If I could only turn back the clock to when God and her were born  
"Come in," she said, "I'll give ya  
Shelter from the storm._" – Bob Dylan

* * *

They did make an amicable sort of peace. Nick resented being the one to capitulate, but the more he thought about it, he realized none of them were in a position to choose compatriots. Society had fallen down around them, but if he was going to justify his own need for order and infrastructure, then he couldn't be pushing others out on counts of being spoiled or immature. Julie would figure out soon enough that this world had very different limits, and if not, they could cross that door when they came to it.

Julie accepted the apology for his "over-reaction" with some dodging. He wrote it out and Meg stood impersonally back. The skinny, vapid girl didn't seem to be aware of the crisis he'd faced on account of Sheriff Baker's pistol. Hedging his eyes, Julie shrugged. "Sure, whatevah, man. If you stay cool with me, I'll be cool with you."

Her pout reminded him of the way she'd tugged at his belt in the drugstore, even as he wrote, "I can't." That had made him feel awkward and offended to begin with. There wasn't such a thing as complicated with Julie Lawry. It was either yay or nay.

But they let the whole thing with Tom slide. Nick preferred to have as little discussion with Julie as possible right then, and Meghan had decided it didn't make much difference. Tom took her word over Julie's, and though he hadn't taken much of the medicine, he'd made an effort. The tension had taken its toll on him, and he now sat on the wood bench, quietly stroking his garage. To force an acknowledgement of her wrong out of the girl would probably just elicit more spite. It was a volatile situation; there was no need to force it to a boiling point.

"You'll need some traveling clothes," Meg said. She hadn't failed to notice the _crashed-out plate-glass window of the dress shop_ down the street. "I need some new things too." There was no doing laundry on the road. She planned on keeping only what was meaningful to her and discarding the rest. She turned to Julie and cocked her head. "Do you wanna go shopping with me?"

"So we're really going then? To Nebraska?" Her face fell slack-jawed. With the reality of leaving imminent, she was less than anxious. Maybe she wouldn't even want to go with them, when it came right down to it.

"Not tonight," Meg looked to Nick for confirmation and he nodded slightly. "Tomorrow morning. But we ought to get ready. You'll need a bike you're comfortable with … unless there's a car we can take?"

"Oh, I've got a bike," Julie said. She entirely disregarded the second suggestion, confirming Meg's suspicion that the girl at least lacked a license. Nick didn't miss it either. _It came to him with sudden surety that she had lied about her age._ The thought that she would have coupled with him there in the dim recesses of the store, moments after meeting, gave him the heebie-jeebies. He looked away, catching sight of Tom. He hoped Meg could convince her to put something else on. The poor guy hadn't buckled his lip since she came bouncing down the street half an hour ago.

With what struck her as false chumminess, Julie linked her arm in Meg's and nearly skipped down the sidewalk. The men stared after them, Tom woozily and Nick doubtfully.

* * *

The dress shop had already been ransacked, but Julie seemed to know exactly where everything was. There wasn't really any need to worry that her scanty outfit would last. It quickly joined the array of articles strewn about the floor as she doffed one thing and then another, each selection making only cursory acquaintance with her bare skin. She wasn't shy about changing either.

Meghan, who had tried to avoid high school locker sessions, usually wearing gym shorts under her other clothes, conveniently looked away while Julie chattered. She seemed to have gotten over the affront to her pride, at least for the time being. If she wasn't quite willing to embrace Meg as a friend, she had already decided to let her fill a blank space.

"Mary Beth and I could lift just about anything from the Rave in Towne West," she said, shimmying into yet another pair of tight jeans, these ones bedecked with silver studs and trendy shreds. "Never got caught neither. 'Course, that's no problem anymore." As if to emphasize this, she ripped a pair of dangly earrings and several bangles from a rack, accessorizing in short order. She stood in front of a mirror, puckering her lips in various postures. Meg almost smiled.

"So you two are doin' it, right?" The question took her aback for a moment. Meg shrugged, looking behind her out the broken glass. She couldn't see either Nick or Tom from that angle.

"Umm, I suppose you could say that." She smoothed the small pile of clothes she'd looped over her arm. In the time Julie had exhausted three or four outfits, Meg had already picked the things she would take with her. She wanted several loose cotton shirts and as many pairs of shorts, one pair of jeans, a sweater and a loose windbreaker. A package of ankle socks. A package of plain cotton underwear, though she did opt for bikinis. She was going to overhaul her pack tonight. She was keeping Jake's shirt, her book, some toiletries, and that was it.

"I knew it right away! He didn't want nothin' to do with me." Julie smirked at herself in the mirror. "So where'd you meet anyway? I don't know about him, but you're not from around here. I can tell that by your accent." She cast a knowing look over her shoulder. "And y'all couldn't have been together before."

Meg pushed her hair back. She badly wanted to wash it tonight and vowed somehow she'd find a way. "No. You're right about that. But time just doesn't seem to work the way it did before, either." This wasn't the first time Meg had hashed that thought over, and she made a mental note to bring it up with Nick. "I guess it's been about a week." She gave an abridged version of her roots, explaining how she summered with her grandmother in Texas and spent the rest of the year with her family in New York. "I met Nick coming back up through Arkansas. He was born in Nebraska, but he's traveled a lot," she said. She didn't figure he'd explained most of this to Julie.

"Oh, wow! Like, he might actually know that old woman then."

Julie, who was fixing a hunk of her hair up in a ponytail that jutted from the right side of her scalp, took Meg completely by surprise. "What?"

"Aren't you guys goin' there because of the weird dreams? I mean, the creepo's bad enough, but that's some weird shit. I wanna be in the movies and all, but not if the bogeyman's directin', you get me?"

Meg nodded. Suddenly, she felt like she had to sit down. Hollowly, she said, "So, you dreamt of the old woman, too?"

"Sure. I don't much care 'bout her gospel. Same shit my momma and Aunt Lynette used to shove down my throat every Sunday. She's just some ol' witch rockin' on her front porch. Her times all up, I figure. But if it comes down to a choice between truckin' with that dude and takin' my chances with the bunch that ol' lady draws … well, there's bound to be cute guys either way, right? And if I change my mind later, I'll just head on."

Meg's throat had gone entirely dry. "I guess that's one way of thinking about it." She thought her voice sounded far away.

* * *

At twelve, six years sounds like a very long time, half a life already and you can barely remember the first part. The next six, till eighteen stares you down and freedom descends like some mystic benediction, seems like it will take forever. Meg still remembered that last year Jacob was alive, and while he lived he was invincible.

Death can come at any time, they learned that early when their father got sick; and it was driven home when he opted to take the short road to that long good-bye. But surely it couldn't take anybody. Surely there were some rules by which even death, that nasty rat-toothed carnival barker, had to play. It couldn't take the young, could it? Not without reason. There was so much still to do. But Meghan, who had never really been alone since the time she was brought into the world, woke up alone in that hospital bed. By that time, her mother and brother had been in the ground for the passing of a moon. It was September 21, 1984. She'd missed the start of school. She'd missed her own birthday, which was their birthday. She'd missed the funeral.

The only thing she could ever remember about that sleep, if sleep was what it was, was being shrouded in green. The land was green and it seemed to her that it must have been grass, tall grass like on a savannah, waving around her, moving beneath her, covering her with its whispering fingers of secrecy. She couldn't move and she couldn't speak. Even the sky was drenched in green, veiled as it was by the verdant sea in which she lay quite still, cocooned like a baby. Sometimes, in the years since, she woke up from some dream or other and felt she'd been passing time as in a way-station. Only now, she thought perhaps she'd been visiting herself at some other age. There was six-year-old Meghan, playing hop-scotch, losing herself in the curtains of green. Here she was again at eleven, hiding her journal from Jake so he couldn't tease her about the cut-out pictures of Matt Dillon she'd pasted in there.

Only two weeks ago, she took these dreams as a unique phenomena constructed in the aftermath of her accident. It was something she psychologically owned. Surely no one else had ever appeared in that chimeric country, although Meg suspected that her brother Jake was not far off during these dreams. After all, he was still a part of her, wasn't he? But now she faced the certainty that something was pulling others into a territory that was similar if not the same. Following her exchange with Julie, she began to believe that on a subconscious wavelength, the green and empty place might mark one end while Mother Abagail's corn fields existed at another degree or level, likely in this world. If that was so, then her private country could even be real, albeit located in some world beyond the pale of death. The thought gave her shivers.

Anything can belong to it, she thought; it's entirely interchangeable. That would be enough to drive some mad, seeing connections everywhere, slices of an alternate reality. Meghan didn't have any idea what it meant, but it allowed her to accept the anomaly of a shared dream experience without becoming ensnared in the superstitious hoodoo and apocalyptic jargon she suddenly felt sure they were walking right into.

* * *

They ended up going out of their way to find a place to stay that night, picking a Super 8 on the east side of town. The electronic locks on the doors, which Meg figured wouldn't work at all with the power off, turned out to be battery-backed. After finding the correct key-cards, which had a hole-punch sequence to work with the locks, they were easily able to access a pair of rooms on the first floor.

There was an agreement to meet Julie the next morning in the same downtown place. Meg sat down on the end of the bed tiredly. It wasn't yet dark outside, but she felt like they'd packed several days into one. Tom was across the hall, sleeping off his stomach cramps. They'd left him with several quarts of Gatorade and water to keep him hydrated. Nick had grudgingly relinquished the idea of getting him to drink half the bottle of Pepto-Bismol. It just seemed to make him gag, anyway.

Nick tossed their packs on a chair near the window and turned to look at her. Her elbows were on her knees, her chin propped between her palms. Her hair was bedraggled and her features looked sharper, like she'd been losing weight. He supposed she was, as he was. His clothes all felt looser after the last week. Even during those lean and roaming years, he'd never felt the burn of exercise so much in his life.

Meg cocked an eyebrow. "Do you want to tell me now why you thought it might be a good idea to pull a gun on that girl?"

Nick shook his head. He looked down at his feet and back at her. He didn't think he would ever really have been tempted to sleep with Julie Lawry, but the way his head had started buzzing and his heart thudding in and out when he saw her … It was disturbing. More disturbing was her almost obligatory insistence. There was a girl who hated to be denied. Her provocative outfits were the least of it. He didn't like her obvious duplicity. He didn't like the condescending attitude and the brazen way she had taunted Tom. The impression she gave him was of _something inhuman, more kin to the trundling and coldblooded beetles you find under dead trees than to other human beings._ But how could he explain that to Meg without sounding unreasonable himself?

He just shook his head again. After a moment he sank to his knees in front of her. She lifted her arms and he laid his head on her lap. Taking in her breath, Meg began brushing her fingers over his hair. It was black and thick and tended to get unruly as it grew longer, which he had it now.

Long days, thought Nick, realizing his body and his mind were tired_. Long days and pleasant nights_, that's all we can really hope for. The thought made him feel strangely cold. How long would their days be? He wondered, as the sun sank over the flat scrub country outside. Tomorrow as long as today? He looked again into the girl's eyes. The room was growing dim. She traced the rim of his eye patch with her thumb and smiled wanly.

"Lie down," she whispered, her lips moving in the semi-darkness. "Lie down for awhile. I don't think it matters anyway."

Nick climbed up on the bed beside her, his lips grazing her mouth and her cheek as he did so. He sprawled on the bed and indeed, he was asleep before he knew it.

Meg took the lantern and used the water she'd carted into the bathroom to wash herself. She shampooed her hair. She lathered her legs, which got so dusty on the road, and shaved them. It was a small and private rite. Afterward, she felt better. She felt fresher and more prepared to accept the inevitable changes tomorrow would bring.

She put on a clean tee shirt and panties and crawled onto the big bed next to him. She noticed he was still wearing that damn patch, which she gently removed. Feeling bad that she hadn't thought of it before, she also removed his sneakers and socks. He woke up halfway through this and nearly kicked her. Then he sat up, looking disconcertedly around the room. His eyes ticked over the dead clock on the nightstand and the darkened window.

"It's only about 11:00," Meg said. "You haven't been asleep very long."

He leaned in to smell her damp hair. Long enough, he thought, wondering how a girl could keep so many mysteries when they were with each other almost twenty-four hours a day. He got up and drew the blinds. For some reason, meeting Julie had made him wary of other people. He was sure that some strangers would be threatening. He didn't care what Meg thought of the gun, he wasn't getting rid of it. It had saved him when Ray Booth came lurching out of the darkness. And Booth was dead. But there would be other dangers. It wasn't over, he felt sure of that. He'd been thinking it all along. _Danger was everywhere, inside the houses, around the next bend in the highway, maybe even hiding beneath the cars and trucks littered all over the main roads. And if it wasn't there, it was in the calendar, hidden just two or three leaves down. Danger, every particle of his being seemed to whisper it. BRIDGE OUT. FORTY MILES OF BAD ROAD. WE ARE NOT RESPONIBLE FOR PERSONS PROCEEDING BEYOND THIS POINT._

He used the bathroom and came back to her. And they got down to the business of youth, which is always deadly serious, after all.

As he pulled her naked body onto his thighs, burying his face in her skin, she put her hand on his chest. "Forgetting something?" Her eyes were wide and a little unsure.

He narrowed his brows, questioning her.

She looked down. "You know …"

Right. That. Nick could scarcely believe it had slipped his mind. Now that he thought about it, he wanted to feel her without the thin layer of protection between them. He wondered how risky. A dozen clichéd arguments ran through his mind, and finally he stopped reasoning. He moved enticingly against her.

"I'll stop, if you want to stop," he signed. He thought of Sarah, who had once said something similar, in much the same position but their roles reversed. He shook her from his mind.

Meghan nodded, her eyes still wide, and let him guide her. She reached that plateau much quicker than she thought she would and her body arched, letting the crescendo break over her. She coasted for a moment then became still, the small nub between her legs too sensitive to continue. He was close to that point himself, pushing against her, his hands holding her hips so firmly she'd notice the next day a couple of small bruises in the shape of fingerprints. He withdrew from her and jettisoned on her stomach, upward nearly to her breasts. With his hands, he pushed some of this away but mostly it smeared deeper into her skin, feeling sticky and then tight.

She collapsed against him and he pulled them back against the mattress. "Was that your way of branding me?" She giggled but blushed deeply, halfway serious.

"Do you mind?" he signed, then collapsed his hand against her arm, stroking absently.

She shook her red tangles.

* * *

They were all three of them secretly hoping that Julie Lawry wouldn't show up the next day, but there she was as they rode back onto Main Street. She had kept her word so far. She had a pink ten-speed that looked fairly new. She'd packed a large knapsack, which honestly looked like it was busting its seams. She wasn't dressed much more demurely than she had been before, but the plaid shorts and white halter top at least looked like serviceable day wear.

Meg coasted up beside her and noticed that she was also wearing a Sony walkman, its skinny earphones buried in the ash brown hair drawn back from her temples. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad, after all. Meg looked back at Nick and Nick gestured north, a straight beeline out of town.

"I gotcha," Julie said. She was chewing gum, at least half a package by the way her jaw worked.

They rode on, making it to Iuka, some 6 miles away, by late morning. They stopped and ate a brief brunch of cold Pop-Tarts and bottled juice. There was silence between them. Tom was subdued and Julie was diffident. She never removed her earphones. Meg caught her surreptitious glances at Nick and sensed that the girl might have something up her sleeve, but figured it was immaterial.

They picked up and got back on the road by noon. Again, Julie glared at Nick and shot Meg a disgusted look as she turned the dial up on her walkman.

It was a dynamic that might have clamored to a head had it not been interrupted by the timely juxtaposition of Ralph Brentner.

* * *

**A/N: Oh my lord! Have I finally gotten to the end of Chapter 43? I can't believe I spanned seven chapters just to get through King's one. Forgive me if I have been repetitive or tiresome. Got a little more graphic here and believe me, I debated that but convinced myself that it really is relevant to both the characters and the plot.**

**Also, I just finished _Wizard and Glass_, so I'm adding far more Dark Tower references than I ever intended. Nick's random interjection of the gunslinger's greeting, for instance. But Meg's green coma world is one I've imagined since I was a kid myself. I will be working more with this, perhaps drawing more analogies between it and Midworld. But don't expect any cameo appearances from Roland & co.**


	8. If You Could Read My Mind

The truck bore down on the four of them, stalled as they were on the side of the road. Tom was waving frantically but the others stood stock-still, straddling their bikes as the worn old hulk of metal slowed and finally stopped, kicking dust around their heels. It was a vintage Chevy, tan and cream, streaked here and there with rust but mostly maintained. The driver leaned across the wide front seat and pushed his hat to a rakish angle. He looked to be between forty and fifty, probably on the short end of that stick, but hard-living and days spent busting his back in the sun had seamed his face like a dry creek bed.

"And where are you two fellas headin' with these pretty little gals?"

Julie rolled her eyes. Tom was nearly shaking with anticipation. Meg looked at each of them and then back at Nick. Nick was already peeling a sheet of notepaper off the small tablet he kept in his pocket. He handed it to the man and the man nodded.

"Ralph Brentner, pleased to meet ya, Nick." They shook and then he looked at Meg and she stepped forward, holding her hand up to the window. She was charmed by the large pheasant feather cocked into the rim of Ralph's hat, but unnerved by his congenial and winking eyes.

"Meghan O'Malley from New York," she said, sketching a little curtsy. She stepped lightly back and almost tripped into Nick, who placed his hand lightly on her waist.

Ralph didn't miss this. He seemed likely to speak, but Tom piped up from behind them. "Tom Cullen, sir. I'm from OK—that means Oklahoma. But we're in Kansas, now. M-O-O-N. That spells Kansas!"

Julie was glaring disgustedly at Tom, but Ralph only laughed lightly. He scratched beneath his hat. "Well, now, is that so?"

His browned elbows still propped on his truck's window ledge, engine idling, his eyes drifted over Julie Lawry. She regarded him sulkily, her hands on her hips. She sucked lightly on her lower lip, her head tilted. For a moment, Meg wasn't certain what tack she'd take but assumed she'd come on strong. When all eyes were on her, Julie finally did speak and the measure of shyness and raw vulnerability she managed to convey was surprising and somehow false. "Well, I'm Julie," she said, shifting from foot to foot like a little girl. "These people came through my town yesterday. I guess we're on our way to Nebraska?" She managed to turn this last into a query.

Ralph raised one eyebrow and Nick, who had been watching closely, narrowed his. Quickly, he scribbled something on another note-sheet, handing this past Julie to Ralph. She regarded him coolly.

"We are on our way to Nebraska. We have experienced similar dreams about an elderly woman who may be living there. Polk County. I think the name of the place is Hemingway Home."

Ralph's face brightened as he read this and he actually slapped Nick on the shoulder. "I'll be!" he cried. "I think it's Hemingford Haven, myself. I've had several dreams of that old woman and I sure would like to see her." His large brown eyes grew distant for a moment and the look of sadness reminded Meg of an old dog on a porch, watching his master walk away. "I sat at home after the last of it till I reckon I couldn't stand the quiet no more. I've never been one to sit still for too long." Nick nodded at this and Meg believed he could relate to it. "Those dreams started up. First there was bad ones and then the good ones started and I wanted to believe she's real so badly. That got me moving. I figured at the very least maybe some other people'd show their faces and now here we are, if that don't beat all!"

Nick smiled and Meg found it was contagious. She liked Ralph Brentner. He reminded her of the overseers on the I-O, particularly Shel. Shelton Corbett—who had been stable master for longer than she had been alive—always had a kind smile for Meg, a gentle hand to boost her up, and a pocket full of sugar cubes for the horses. He'd ask unfailingly each summer after her school, what books she'd read, and what she wanted to do now she was "all growed up." More often than not he'd just nod curtly as she babbled about different subjects, then turn his head and spit in the straw. He'd tip his straw hat and cluck Fawn out of her stall or rub her down after a ride mostly in silence. But he'd grin at all the appropriate anecdotes and once in a while he'd pipe in with, "Well, if that don't beat ever'thing" or "You can whistle and call me Dixie," a favored expression of his.

With Jake, he'd been less reserved. He'd taken Jake under his wing to show him most everything there was to see on the I-O and coach him on more than just the essentials of riding. The older Jake got, the more likely the taciturn Shel was to share a bawdy joke or some long and rambling story with him, usually while showing him how to hook knots, shovel stalls, or repair fencing. But the laughter and animated talk inevitably tapered into silence or shy and guilty smiles when Meg came round a corner.

That first summer Meghan came alone following Jake's death, the normally jocund Shel was overcome with emotion. Meeting his eyes, as she slowly climbed back in the saddle that first time—the thought of flying off and being trammeled just as Jake flew through the windshield rose unbidden and somehow unforgettably in her mind—his face had been as shocked and slack as Ralph Brentner's was a moment ago. He'd swiped his hat off his mostly bald pate, looked up at the hesitant girl in the saddle and said only, "I'll miss him too. I sure will." Then he'd placed his hat firmly back on and turned away, leading Fawn out into the paddock with his back to her, but Meg had seen the silent quaking in his shoulders, and that had united her with the older man in a way that she hadn't ever felt tied to her own father.

Now, Ralph looked from one of them to another. "Well, we're a regular band of travelers now! _Climb on up here and let's_ get a move on." There was some shuffling and concern over how they were going to cram themselves in Ralph's truck.

"Gosh darn it, I didn't think I'd outgrow this ol' girl so soon." Sliding back into the driver's seat, he ran his hands over the steering wheel. "But here we are and if I'd known how much comp'ny I'd find this afternoon, I might have picked myself up a bigger ride. How's that?"

Nick shook his head. He and Tom had already lifted the bikes up into the bed of the truck. Now he waved Meg and Julie into the front and he and Tom climbed in back. Ralph sighed as he pulled away. Meg, who was crammed in the middle, looked over as he used his pinkie finger to swipe a tear from the corner of his eye. Laughing despite himself, he said, "I just realized we got the last of America right here, girls. That's all." But his smile was bittersweet.

Julie stretched her arm on the open window and focused on the dry grass blowing by either side, but Meg saw her eyes flash with something furtive and curious before she looked away.

* * *

It began that night.

Their band had evened out to six. Ralph veered away from Great Bend to avoid stalled cars. Just past Medora, with evening lagging on, they happened on Dick Ellis walking by the side of the road. A heavy pack bent the older man's slim shoulders as he leaned over his home-fashioned stick. There were more greetings all around, more broad smiles and relieved, tearful eyes. Only Julie looked discomforted, even perturbed, by this addition.

They camped that night out in the open and built a fire after first digging a wide and shallow pit to contain it. Talk was dominated by the men. Meg sat back, noting that neither Ralph nor Dick left Nick behind in their conversation. Not once did they petition her, although she could easily have interpreted for him. They deferred to Nick, waiting for his thoughtfully written notes, catching his keen and ever-watchful eye. While Tom and Julie and even she were relegated to the sidelines, occasionally gathering a nod or a smile or a few words of agreement, it became clear that the group was going to coalesce around Nick. Meg decided that it was something in his nature that refused to be second-guessed. He had presence, like a politician or a screen star. And the more she thought about that, the more uneasy she felt.

They sat hunched in front of the fire after a light meal had out of cans. Tom had already retired in his sleeping roll. Julie sat far back in the shadows. Meg had given up trying to talk to the girl, who regarded her with slightly less repulsion than one might view a particularly pungent week-old cheddar. As Meg handed her a plastic dish filled with beans and corn, Julie's lip curled. She accepted the dish without a word but set it aside, tossing her hair over her shoulder and staring sulkily into the flames. Later, she began eating Starbursts she'd stowed in her pack; one at a time she folded the colorful little papers neatly and tried to fly them into the fire. The others looked over at her briefly before returning to their discussion, which had turned to serious matters.

Nick handed Ralph another note, which Ralph read aloud for Dick, whose eyesight was not so good. "For all we know the president is dead and all his men. So who's going to put Humpty back together now?"

Ralph gave Nick a good look over and concluded that the guy had it together. He cleared his throat and looked back around the circle at their pale and drawn faces in the flickering shadows. "Well, there's a pleasant thought for the night. What about those concrete bunkers they got under Washington? You'd think some of those fellas'd be holed up waitin' for the air to clear."

Nick was shaking his head. "Remember the news reports during the last days of the flu?" he wrote. "Everything shut down. They were lying through their teeth. Vaccines available soon, but they were all coughing. Whatever it was, it took them by surprise too."

It was Dick's turn to shake his head. "I can't believe somebody couldn't find a way to sustain it, somehow." He looked off into the night.

Nick shrugged, writing again. "It got out of hand—wherever it started. I want to believe somebody made a mistake. I have to believe that. It's better than thinking it was purposeful. I imagine the biggies at the top didn't even know till it was out of control, too late to stop. The old adage … for want of a nail, the kingdom fell."

Reading slowly, Ralph found Nick's logic inarguable. Dick nodded thoughtfully. The fire glinted over his gold-rimmed spectacles. Meg shuddered to herself and reached for her sleeping bag, pulling it close about her shoulders. She could see the gaunt old charlatan now, hacking away in his cabinet as they debriefed him on this spreading virus; his eyes goggled hopefully at news of the developing vaccine, even as he wobbily signed executions of martial law, his cheeks blazing obscenely. Was it always like that? Were all their institutions, all their traditions so much pastiche, so much gaudy dressing around a crummy cardboard puppet theater? She was discouraged to think it might be so.

She caught Nick's eye briefly across the fire and he smiled at her, but she realized he wasn't going to be holding her this night. Strange, how easily she'd adjusted to his closeness and taken it for granted. This was the first night since they met that she'd be sleeping apart from him. Feeling the weight of the night press around her, she lay down on her side and rolled away from the fire.

Julie watched surreptitiously, smirking when Meghan blew a strand of hair away from her eyes and pulled the downy comforter up over her head. This might get very interesting after all, oh yes indeed.

* * *

**Chapter to be continued ...**


End file.
